


This Kind of Recognition

by fortywinks (ballantine)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Out of Sight AU, Raised Apart
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-05
Updated: 2016-09-04
Packaged: 2018-04-19 06:31:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 49,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4735991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballantine/pseuds/fortywinks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam's the fed with the fantastic legs. Dean's the irrepressible criminal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Notes for the Chapter:**

> The scenario and some dialogue from the film [Out of Sight](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120780/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1) have been adapted for this story.

_It's like seeing someone for the first time, and you look at each other for a few seconds, and there's this kind of recognition like you both know something. Next moment the person's gone, and it's too late to do anything about it._

\- Jack Foley, _Out of Sight_

 

**Part I**

 

After, like _long after_ , Sam might grudgingly say it was serendipity. At the time though, he only knew it as sheer dumb luck, and not the good kind.

He's down in Belle Glade, Florida, serving process – a summons and a complaint. Some con doing life apparently doesn't like the food and is suing for a violation of his civil rights. It's not exciting work, but Sam's GL-0082-07. A rookie, which means he gets all the boring jobs.

It's dark when he pulls up on the gravel lot outside the prison. He's running late and in a bad mood, having had to cancel another date with Victor to get down here. This of course necessitated an uncomfortably long phone conversation in which Sam was accused of being a workaholic closet case. He thought that was real rich coming from a bureau guy who was still technically married.

Sam slides past another car in the lot and throws his Charger into park. He leans over to grab the court papers, but a motion through the windshield makes him pause and look up over his steering wheel.

A figure is crouched down about a dozen yards away.

Sam lifts an arm and flips his headlights back on, throwing the man in sharp relief. He stares; the man isn't crouched down, he's climbing out of a hole.

A hole in the ground.

A hole in the ground on the _outside of the fence_.

As Sam watches, the man hops up and then turns and extends a hand to help another. Without waiting any longer, Sam pounds a palm down on his horn and holds it. The noise wails out into the darkness.

Both men jerk up and look over his direction. Another second and the two are taking off into the dark woods surrounding the prison.

Sam throws open his door and gets out just as the compound tower lights flash over. He hollers and points a finger after the escaping convicts and spotlight swivels to follow them. The prison's sirens go off a moment later.

He checks his shoulder holster for his pistol but after a second's consideration ducks back into his car to grab his shotgun instead. His adrenaline's up and finds himself grinning; this is so much better than serving court papers.

He ducks out of the car again in time to see several guards finally run up, guns out and barking back and forth at each other like overexcited dogs. They glance at Sam but don't bother approaching, too interested in the hole in the ground.

Incredibly, another man emerges, head and shoulders streaked in muck. The guards all take a startled step back, raising their weapons, but the man shouts at them and points after the retreating pair. Sam squints through the darkness and notices the man in the hole is also wearing a guard uniform. He shouts again and the others all jump-to and dash after the convicts, who have disappeared into the dense underbrush of the orange grove.

Sam stays where he is, watching narrowly as the man in the hole finishes climbing out and gets to his feet. He stands astride the hole a moment, tall and straight-backed, with oddly bowed legs and hands on his hips like a real commanding officer.

Then Sam notices his trousers are a little on the short side, revealing a couple extra inches of his socked ankles.

He hoists his shotgun.

“Hey now,” a low, Cajun voice says behind him. “There's no need for any of that.”

Sam spins and points the gun at the man that's come up from behind him. Over his shoulder he sees the parked car's door standing open.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?” Sam has a pretty good guess.

There's another noise and the escapee is coming up on Sam's side, dark and filthy like a creature from the black lagoon. Sam looks over – stupid mistake.

The getaway driver gets him around the neck in a crushing grip that Sam can't dislodge. He fights back, drives the butt of his gun into the man's gut and a second later it's wrested away from him. He's spun around then, held with his arms twisted behind him. The two men drag him kicking to the trunk of his own car.

Shouts and gunfire in the distance. Then silence.

“I'll bet they don't send any more goons out,” the swamp man says, looking over at the woods. His voice is low and of indeterminate accent. Maybe Midwest. “Otherwise there won't be any left to keep control of the inside.”

“Seems like something to muse about later,” the man holding Sam says. “We should get outta here before they come back with their trophies and start taking a closer look at you.”

The swamp man nods sort of absently and turns to look at Sam. After a moment of close squinting, he says, sounding surprised, “Hey, you're just a kid.” And then: “Why you packing a _shotgun_?”

Sam struggles against the other man's bizarrely firm grip. “I'm a federal marshal.”

“A fed _,_ with that hair?” The swamp man sounds amused. “You believe that, Benny?”

Sam doesn't allow his annoyance to show and focuses on keeping his head up and breathing even. He says firmly, despite his complete lack of traction with the man – Benny, apparently – holding him, “You're both under arrest. Surrender your weapons now, and I promise to go easy on you.”

The swamp man casts an unreadable glance up at his partner and appears to seriously consider Sam's proposal. He starts to nod and Sam's thrown until he says, “Okay, kid. So what's going to happen is, you're going to get into that trunk, and we're all going to hit the road.” He motions with the gun, almost apologetic.

Benny walks Sam to the trunk and pushes him lightly at it. He steps back and the swamp man smoothly relays the gun, its barrel trained at Sam's chest the entire time. He motions again at Sam, impatience starting to work its way into his movements and expression.

“Alright, alright,” Sam says, twisting around so he's half-looking at them. He lifts one long leg up into the trunk, only half feigning the awkwardness of the motion.

He's got that spare pistol in the hidden side compartment of the trunk. If he just shuffles down and angles a little more he can....

The man suddenly shoves him, hard, and he folds down, clipping both his shoulder and head on the sides of the trunk. Before he can react, the man is pushing him further in and climbing in behind, slotting up tight and close, arm an iron band around his side, pinning him down.

Sam is wedged up against the inner wall of the trunk. They're curled up, spooning, and when the door closes above them, the darkness makes it like they're a couple cuddling in bed at night. Sam feels the solid line of muscle and heat tracing his body from calf to neck.

He is curiously unafraid, even as the car rumbles to life around him and starts to ease forward over the gravel.

“You know you don't have a chance in hell of making it out of here,” Sam says into the darkness. “The guards are already out there, they'll stop this car.”

The other man's breath is hot against his neck. “Nah, I don't think so. They're off in the trees, trussing up my brilliant partners in crime. I timed this all very carefully.”

Even as he speaks, Benny up in front must slam a foot on the gas, because the car is suddenly picking up speed, the road below smoothing out from gravel to asphalt.

The man shuffles minutely around, and Sam can't tell if the searching hand he runs down his side and over his hip and leg is something he should worry about until there's a rustle and a click. A weak orange beam of a flashlight is illuminates the trunk's interior. Sam cranes his neck slightly, but all he can really see is the line of the man's legs bracketing his own. The arm around his middle is well-muscled and wearing a leather bracelet and a heavy ring that gleams dully under all the mud.

“That's better,” the man sighs and rubs his face on the back of Sam's neck. It's almost a nuzzling motion, his nose dragging slowly through the hair at his nape – and then Sam registers the sticky wet sensation left behind and realizes the man's wiping his face clean on his suit jacket.

“Ugh, _hey_ – quit that,” he bitches, momentarily forgetting himself. The man laughs lightly, a low rumble Sam can feel in his chest.

“Sorry, but that tunnel I had to crawl through was gross. Stunk too.”

“Well now you've ruined a nine-hundred dollar suit.” The suit was a gift from Victor; Sam has student loans and would never have spent so much precious take-out money on clothing.

The man hums a little, considering. “It did go well with that 12-gauge you were packing. Tell me, why would someone like you become a marshal, anyway?”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“You seem like the brainy type, is all. And young, still got that college kid shine to you. You gotta be only, what, 23, 24?”

He's 22, but there's no way he's going to tell the con that. “You don't think law enforcement requires intelligence?”

“Not in my experience,” the man mutters, a curious knowing note in voice.

“I guess the idea of going after guys like you appealed to me.” Sam has barely said the words before the regret hits. He closes his eyes as delighted amusement fills the man's voice in response.

“Guys like me. Why, I'm flattered. Really.” He shifts again, and Sam tries to ignore the solid presence of his body, the raised-hair sensitivity that bristles through him when the man's hardening length nudges his ass. To his surprise, the man follows the motion up with an almost sheepish, “Uh, sorry. Haven't gotten laid in ages. I'm not – not going to try anything. That's not my thing.”

Whether he means guys or coercion, Sam doesn't ponder.

“You wouldn't have time anyway,” Sam says neutrally. “They'll put up roadblocks, run my plates when we hit one. You guys aren't making it out of this.”

The man is unconcerned. “Oh, those won't be set up in time. And Benny's clean, looks just like one of those good old boys they're so fond of down here. They won't suspect nothing.”

The car goes over a few bumps, rocking them back and forth against each other. Sam sets his jaw, grits his teeth. The temperature in the trunk is near stifling. He can feel himself start to sweat through his shirt.

“So what's your name,” the man asks after a moment. He moves around so he's propped up on an elbow and now Sam can see his face.

It's as pretty as it looked from the glimpse he got outside, even streaked with filth. An almost delicate set of features complemented with a strong jaw and a killer mouth. The way he's looking down at Sam, close and intent and _interested_ , has Sam shifting again and wishing he could move away.

“It's Sam," he says reluctantly. "Sam Wesson.”

“Well, nice to meet you, Sam.” The man seems earnest, like he really _means_ it. “I'm Dean.”

“Charmed, I'm sure,” Sam says, disgruntled.

They hit another bump, and this time Dean doesn't apologize about the insistent cock at the small of Sam's back. Sam tries to glare but the man only shrugs and grins down at him, a flash of startling white in the dim orange lighting of the trunk.

Sam sighs and prays for a roadblock.


	2. Chapter 2

Dean's rubbing his hip, tracing little circles over the jut of bone. He's been doing it awhile now, started up as he began telling Sam cheerfully about how he convinced his two lost compatriots to go along with his escape plan. He has not let on for a second that he is trying to drive Sam utterly fucking insane.

Not that Sam was cluing him in re: the insane.

“So, Dean,” he interrupts a slightly patronizing sermon on the tactical use of reverse psychology. “What were you in prison for anyway?”

Dean cuts off his self-congratulating with a thoughtful little noise and, thankfully, stops fondling Sam.

“I'm surprised you don't know. I was quite the hot item. National manhunt, rewards for information, my own pet FBI stalker – the works.”

“You sound awfully proud for a man who got caught,” Sam points out.

“Aw, man, I didn't really get caught. Had some ...business in Glades to attend to.”

Sam's twists his head around to give the other man his best scathing look. “You're saying you allowed yourself to get put in prison? You expect me to believe that?”

Dean studies his expression with a slightly bemused smile and shrugs one shoulder. “Well, sure.”

“Right. And you thought that was a good idea because, what, you knew you could just Hilts out of there any old time?”

Dean's eyes widen. “A McQueen reference, _nice_.” He pats Sam a little too firmly. “It's good to know you were raised right.”

Sam doesn't think he would term _spent the first half of his childhood watching crap TV in crap motel rooms_ as _raised right._ No one really would.

“I thought you said you weren't going to try anything,” he manages. When Dean just gives him a confused look in response, he glances pointedly down at the hand still resting over the curve of his ass.

“Hey, there's not a lot of space in here, all right? And, look, don't take this the wrong way, but you have a really _fantastic_ – ”

“You know,” Sam says loudly. “The difference between you and Hilts is that he was always trying to return to his duty in the war. Not duck out of a rightfully earned criminal sentence.”

Dean is quiet a second before murmuring, “You're a real stickler for details, aren't you.”

“When they're relevant, yeah.”

“Right, well. You won't believe me, but my case ain't all that different.”

He stops talking then and they both practically stop breathing; a police siren is wailing in the distance. If Sam is not mistaken, it is getting closer.

Sam's body tenses up, his brain already running through different gameplays and trying to work out how to deal with Dean when the time comes. This could all be over in less than ten minutes. Hope surges as the siren draws nerve-crackling near – and crashes as it passes by and recedes away.

He swallows back his feelings, the disappointment and nerves. He knows allowing himself to wallow in either won't help.

When he dares to glance at Dean again, the man is watching him with a regretful slant of his mouth.

“Are you scared?” Dean asks, serious and almost kind.

“Sure,” Sam says impassively. “Of course I am.”

“You don't act like it,” Dean says. He glances down Sam's body and up, not smirking or lavicious, just cataloging.

He has the most transparent face Sam has ever seen on a stranger. It's unnerving, how easy he finds it to read.

“Would you prefer that I shout? Or maybe struggle, here in this trunk that already has the lower half of my legs falling asleep?” Sam sighs and fruitlessly tries to stretch said legs. “No, I'm just going to lie here, relax, and wait for you to screw it all up, as you inevitably will.”

“Oh?”

“Criminals aren't ever nearly as smart as they think they are. First lesson they teach us in the marshal service.”

Rather than sounding offended, Dean is amused, maybe even _charmed_. “Don't usually think of myself as a criminal, so not sure if that covers me or not.” Dean's hand resumes brushing Sam's hip, lighter and slower than before, like he isn't really conscious of doing it. His voice goes low and a little rough. “Though I sure as hell have done some dumb things in my life. Might be entertaining another dumb thing right now.”

Sam says, voice held steady with every ounce of will in his body, “You didn't answer me before. What did they put you away for?”

Dean is distracted. “Oh, this and that. Most recent was a bank robbery.”

“Sounds like quite the duty.”

 _That_ gets his attention.

Dean tries to sit up in outrage and ends up banging his forehead on the trunk. He spends a second cursing virulently before spitting, “Think what you want, but I have a job to do. An important job. If you were told to give up your badge and go sit on your thumb behind a fence for thirty years, would you do it? Can you even imagine that?”

“I don't have to, because I don't rob banks,” Sam says succinctly.

“Neither do I,” comes an unexpected answer in an even more unexpected sulky tone.

Sam snorts and shakes his head. “Seriously dude? You're going to pull the _I didn't do it_ card while riding in the trunk of my car, which you stole and in which you currently have me held against my will?”

Dean makes a noise of annoyed disgust and Sam turns his face away to hide his rebelling grin. He will never admit it, but he _might_ be enjoying himself a little just now. He's got the other man on the ropes, off-balance and no longer in danger of discovering Sam's own physical response to this whole absurd situation.

“To be fair, you weren't meant to be involved in the plan at all,” Dean points out.

“You're escaping from prison. Last I checked, that was still illegal.”

“No sane man would pass up a chance to escape. It's like, human nature or something. I hear it isn't even illegal in some parts of the world.”

“But this isn't the rest of the world, Dean, this is the United States of America. And here, criminals reap what they sow.”

Dean's mouth is suddenly much closer, brushing the shell of his ear. His arm falls forward from where it had been resting and he grips Sam like he had when they first climbed into the trunk, pulls him in that last inch or two until he can't ignore the feeling of the other man's body. His hand runs down Sam's chest, bumping over muscle and meandering its lazy way to his belt.

Sam, holding himself very still, inhales and exhales carefully.

Dean whispers into his ear, a needless provocation in such a small space, “That a promise?”

 


	3. Chapter 3

Okay, so Sam's been hard since about ten minutes after he was first shoved into the trunk.

He knows that's fucked up.

It's almost as if the blood that usually circulated to his now-numb legs has all been redirected to his dick. He's tried to ignore it, done his best to prevent Dean from noticing, and now that's been shot completely to shit by one casual brush of the other man's hand.

Dean's voice is a little hoarse and a lot smug. “Why Sammy, is there something you want to share with the rest of the class?”

Sam grits his teeth and says nothing. His silence doesn't faze the other man.

“You know, no pressure or nothing,” and Dean must've been born with an extra helping of irony, because he accompanies the words with a subtle nudge of hip, his dick a firm burning length that Sam is determinedly not cataloging and memorizing.

Wait, did Dean say something?

“What?” Sam says sharply.

He can practically hear the smirk. “I said, no pressure or nothing, but since we both seem a little, you know, _riled up_ , I figure we might as well, ah...” He trails off suggestively, and his hips do this stuttering little swivel, like he can't help it, like he's not fully in control.

Sam bites back a groan, one that's two-parts irritation and 3-parts arousal. He digs his nails into the flesh of his forearm and refuses to obey his body's demands, which are mostly to cant his own hips backwards and rub up against Dean like a bitch in heat.

“Well?” Dean says. The smugness is still there in his voice and Sam focuses on it because it's annoying _. Dean_ is annoying _._ Why would Sam want to do _anything_ for such an annoying _jerk_?

“Forget it,” he says shortly. He is pleased with how cold and unaffected his own voice sounds.

“Aw, Sammy, c'mon – ”

Sam makes a face into the darkness. “Don't call me that.”

Dean sighs expansively, a loud gusty crosswind above Sam's ear. His hips stop moving. For a few seconds they lie still and silent, listening to the grind of asphalt a few feet below.

“You serious, man?” Dean is almost plaintive.

“I think being locked in a trunk with my kidnapper somewhat precludes my ability to give clear and unequivocal consent.”

And to that he only receives a blank silence followed by an insulted, “ _Dude_.”

Dean doesn't exactly go soft, but he shifts an extra inch back. Sam is left untouched and with his dignity intact, and he tries very, very hard to feel grateful for that fact.

–

“Hey Sam?”

Sam turns his head slightly, listening. He doesn't know how long it's been since they last talked; the passage of time gets a little skewed when one is trapped in a trunk.

“I was thinking – if we met under different circumstances. You know, if you were in a bar, I came up and we started talking.... I just wonder what would happen.”

“Nothing,” Sam says.

Dean's voice is low. “You so sure?”

“You have _got_ to be kidding me.” Sam stares hard at the dark fabric paneling of the seat back.

And then, for the first time, Dean gets a little angry. And it's just another check mark in the _Sam Wesson Is One Fucked Up Puppy_ column that the man's anger triggers another curl of heat below his navel.

“I don't know why you're acting like this is all me here, or that I'm imagining things. I mean – okay, I've got you in a trunk. I get how that's... weird for you, or whatever.”

Sam's mouth curls up in a sneer. It fades when Dean goes on talking.

“But you smile an awful lot for a guy who pretends not to feel anything. You try to hide it, and I can't see your mouth from here, but I _can_ see your fucking dimples, dude. You smile. I think you _like_ me.”

Sam doesn't know where this is going. Luckily, Dean seems to run out of steam in the face of his continued silence. He sighs but what he mutters next is maybe the worst yet.

“You're just. Easy to talk to. 'S weird, you know?”

Sam does know. And it's part of what's freaking him out, because Sam? He finds it hard to really connect with people. It was the one flag on his psych eval during training. Oh, he can interview people efficiently and be polite or even charming when he needs to, but _intimacy_?

Let's just say there's a reason his main sexual outlet is an older, closeted man who lives in a different city.

The moment stretches. Sam opens his mouth, uncertain.

But then the car starts braking, and he is saved.

–

When the trunk swings open, the sudden flood of fresh air is almost enough to make Sam dizzy. Dean clambers out with a hearty whoop! and in the moments between him stretching and turning around, Sam takes the extra room afforded him to reach down to the hidden compartment at his feet and take out the spare pistol inside.

“Alright, Sam, this is almost over – ”

Sam twists, gun up and steady. “Turn around and get your hands up _now –_ ”

“Shit!”

Dean slams the trunk closed, and Sam is in darkness again. This doesn't stop him from firing through the trunk door. Three times.

He spends the next minute tensed and gun at the ready, listening hard to the muffled arguing going on outside. Another cop cars goes roaring by, but Sam's not counting on any help from that quarter.

“Sammy,” Dean calls out, somewhere to the left. “Sam, now you be a good boy, and I'm going to open up the trunk – ”

Sam fires again. It's a waste of a bullet, and it's making his ears ring from discharging in such a small enclosed space, but _damn_ does it feel good to vent some emotion.

“Hey!” Dean barks out. “Look, I'm not leaving you in there. I'm going to open up the trunk enough for you to drop your gun out. Benny's got your shotgun and if you shoot, he's going to shoot, and then it'll be this whole, big _thing_ , okay?”

Sam considers this as another voice from further away joins the scene. There is more muffled talking, none of it distinct enough for Sam to understand, and after another minute Dean speaks to him again.

“Alright, Sam. We agreed? You gonna drop the gun?”

By Sam's reckoning, there are at least three of them out there now, and he has no idea what kind of firepower they're packing. Generally you never want to go to a second location with an abductor, but he's got to follow his instincts on this one.

“Okay,” he calls out finally.

A crunch of gravel just outside the trunk and then the door cracks open a few inches. Sam reluctantly eases his gun through the space. He ignores the cold pang of loss when it is taken from his grip.

The lid swings open wide again, and Sam finds himself blinking up into an underpass light, Dean silhouetted as he leans over the space to look down at him.

He shifts closer to the opening, and his legs start up in painful pins and needles. He glances from Dean to Benny standing a few feet away. Next to him is a new guy, this one tall and almost comically skinny. He's wearing sunglasses, even though it's a moonless night in the countryside.

Sam looks back to Dean. After a moment he raises his hands, licks his lips, and says, “Okay. You win, Dean.”

He can't see Dean's face, but he can see the cautious warning on Benny's as he glances to his silent partner. He still has Sam's 12-gauge.

Dean offers him a hand and helps him climb out of the trunk. Standing once again, stamping his feet to hasten the return of circulation, Sam sneaks a look at his erstwhile trunk companion. Dean's a little wide-eyed, a little thrown, his filthy hair sticking up in agitated little spikes.

He thinks he should feel comforted by how unsettled Dean appears. Or if he were sane (which he is starting to doubt), he should be uncomfortable – the man's fresh from the big house and hornier than a pubescent boy with his first skin mag. Attention from a person like that is not flattering or captivating or –

Dean looks him up and down and then swallows hard, his Adam's apple dipping towards the hollow of his throat. He bites his lip and it's like he's not even aware he's doing it.

Aw, _hell_.


	4. Chapter 4

With two separate guns trained on Sam, the four of them scramble up the embankment. Another car is waiting on the side of the road.

“Dean, buddy, _what_ did you crawl through, a sewer?”

The new guy, Garth, is twirling a butterfly knife for no reason that Sam can fathom. Between it and the sunglasses, Sam has to really wonder how much of an idiot Dean is about his accomplices. He watches as the sharp edge of the blade swings precariously close to the man's wrist and then away again.

The car's emergency lights are flashing. A sign reading _gone to get gas_ is wedged under the windshield wiper.

“Wanted to make sure she wouldn't be disturbed,” Garth says, still swinging the knife casually. Sam, eyebrows arched, looks from him to Dean.

Dean notices his look and flushes. In the next second, he snatches the knife from Garth's grasp, somehow avoiding cutting himself and all the while snapping, “Take those sunglasses off before I throw them over the overpass while they're still on your head.”

“Dude, that's my knife. I _just_ bought it – ”

“Garth,” Benny speaks up from a few feet away. “Go wait in the car.” Sam gets the distinct impression the man doesn't want to deal with any of them. He keeps his distance and has the strange tic of tonguing his teeth.

Garth slouches around to the driver's side, looking more resigned than offended by the curt order.

The butterfly knife disappears into the coat pocket of the guard uniform Dean is wearing. Sam looks away, down the dark road, slow and casual.

Dean rubs the back of his neck, suddenly awkward. “You can send me the bill.”

He's baffled. “The bill for what?”

“Your suit. You should get it cleaned and send me the bill.”

“Sure,” Sam says. “I'll send it to you in Glades. It should only take a few months of stamping license plates to pay off.”

Dean nods and smirks tiredly. “Yeah, yeah.” The expression turns uncomfortable, and he gestures at the car. “Look, I need you to get in the back.”

Sam eyes the crappy coupe. It's about two decades older and significantly smaller than his Charger. “The trunk again?”

Dean stares. “No, the _backseat_.”

“Oh, that's thoughtful. Thank you.”

Dean shrugs, magnaminous. “'Course.”

They both shuffle their feet. Dean starts to look puzzled when he doesn't climb immediately into the car. And Sam is torn, teetering on the edge of a very reckless, very stupid idea.

“Look, Sam, I don't want to,” Dean begins.

He doesn't get to finish, because Sam is grabbing him by the too-loose collar of the filthy guard uniform and hauling him in for a kiss.

Dean makes a noise, startled and cut-off, but after the first moment it settles into a hum. He pulls Sam closer almost immediately, wrapping an arm around his waist and moving his hand restlessly over his back, like he doesn't know what he wants to touch first.

Sam mirrors him, focusing on the taste and hot slickness of his mouth, the feel of his body pressed up against his own, the dizzying distraction of it all. It's only been a couple hours worth of pent-up desire, but it might as well be a lifetime judging by how desperate Sam suddenly feels.

Dean's hands drop down, homing in to palm his backside and pull him closer, and then it's Sam's turn to make a noise.

Benny coughs, loud and deliberate.

Dean steps back, abruptly detaching himself from every part of Sam. He looks a little dazed, and his lips are wet and a little swollen. Sam looks at them and licks his own in sympathy.

“Okay,” Dean rasps out, looking pleased. “Okay, just – just get in the car, Sam.” He's not very convincing with the lingering once-over he gives, but then he shakes his head and gestures again to the car.

Sam doesn't argue. He climbs into the backseat. Cranes his neck to watch Dean and Benny walk a few feet away to talk to each other behind the car, out of earshot. His lips are a little tender, his body a little shocky. That was probably the hottest kiss he's ever experienced in his life.

He turns back to the front, where Garth is watching him with two raised eyebrows in the rearview mirror. He leans forward, takes the butterfly knife he lifted from Dean's pocket and swings it open with an easy, practiced motion to press against Garth's jugular.

“Um,” Garth says.

“I want you to listen very carefully, Garth. You're going to start this car up and drive away right now.”

“Look, man, I really think you have the wrong idea here. We're not actually criminals – ” Garth chokes off when Sam presses the knife in and nicks his skin.

Sam's keeps his voice very even, almost pleasant. “I'm sure your self-conception is glowing and conveniently innocent. But listen – I'm very tired. I've been through a lot tonight – my hand here might slip.” Sam watches Garth swallow hard. “And I really don't want to have to file for an accidental death or self-defense or any of that crap. It's a lot of paperwork. Do you understand what I'm getting at here?”

“Uh,” Garth says.

Sam rolls his eyes. He glances back to where Dean and Benny are still arguing. With a spike of panic, he watches as they appear to taper off, the shift of their shoulders settling back, the almost imperceptible turn of their bodies toward the car.

He looks back at Garth and brandishes the knife.

“Let me tell you how this is going to go,” Sam says.

–

“Brother, how exactly do you think this is going to go?” Benny asks Dean. “You think you're going to take a shower and then sit him down and have a nice long conversation about creatures that go bump in the night?”

Dean has no answer for him. Nothing except a too-honest, “I just want to talk to him again.”

Benny just looks at him with that damnable wry fondness that always make him feel like _he's_ the freak of the group.

“I think it's too late,” he says.

“Hey, he's already kissed me,” Dean points out defensively. “I think I'm doing all right, considering.”

“No,” Benny says, pointing. “I mean it looks like your boy has Garth at knife point.”

What?

Dean curses and spins around, just in time to see the car take off. The tires squeal and the lights weave hypnotically back and forth a few times before it straightens out, speeding away from them into the night.

Dean throws his hands up into the air. “Freakin' perfect!”

–

Between giving a statement and undergoing the local office's debrief and then submitting to a medical once-over, Sam doesn't make it back home to his bed until damn near seven in the morning. He walks like a zombie, stripping out of as many layers as he can be bothered with until his knees hit up against the mattress, and then it's _fuck it_ and he's passing out with whatever is still on.

By the time he wakes up again, feeling like roadkill and standing barefoot in boxers over his laptop as he stirs milk into his coffee mug, it's late afternoon and the local news sites have had time to gather all the details about the prison break.

The first thing he sees is Dean's mugshot, and his lips twitch up involuntarily. It's a ludicrous picture – the young man is completely indifferent to the context and throwing the camera an exaggerated pout that wouldn't look out of place in Zoolander.

Next he reads the caption the newspaper attached to the image. Reads the full name belonging to the man in the picture.

Sam drops his mug.

Luckily, the coffee doesn't spill onto his computer. He'll feel thankful for that later.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Part II**

 

In 1999, when Sam Winchester turned sixteen, he graduated from high school, gained his emancipation, and left the foster system.

It was a big year for him.

The first thing he did as a newly emancipated adult was hack into a federal database and look for any sign of his family, his father and brother. They'd left him behind in a motel in Broken Bow, Nebraska around Christmas when he was all of eight years old. If they ever returned, it wasn't until after CPS had come through.

Thing is, when he remembered details about his family, a lot of it was of them loving and protecting him. He clung to those memories.

Eight years is a long time, plenty long enough to come up with excuses or reasons for what had happened. Maybe they were dead. Maybe they were looking for him, still. (Eight years is also plenty long enough to come up with fantasies of reunion.)

What sixteen-year-old Sam Winchester found in the database was a string of minor warrants and school registrations for his brother dotting the country in the same spread-out, sporadic pattern he remembered from his childhood. One was even from the same county Sam had lived in for a time when he was twelve.

They weren't dead. They hadn't been looking for him.

The second thing he did as a newly emancipated adult was change his name. The third was decide he wanted to go into law enforcement.

It was a big year for him.

–

Pacing the length of his drab apartment, Sam thinks _I should have known._

The moment he saw Dean, he should have known.

Soon as Dean talked or called him _Sammy –_ and he's ignoring the bitter, irrational twist of resentment that rises up at the thought of him going around just throwing that name out there, like it means _nothing_ to him, like that eight-year-old kid who'd looked up to him and depended on him meant _nothing_ –

Sam should have known.

–

“Wait, are you sure he's your brother?” Jess asks him over the phone later that night.

Jessica Moore: former classmate, ex-girlfriend, best friend (“only friend”), and confidante. She's working towards her J.D. at Georgetown and keeps crazy hours. Sometimes Sam will wake up at three in the morning thinking some loitering drunks at the bar below his apartment woke him, only to see his phone and the ten decreasingly comprehensible texts. Autocorrect doesn't like the punctuation and format of legal citations, so most of it is usually gibberish. She stills sends them, claims that the process of typing it helps her think things through. Sam never tells her to cut it out, worried that if he did, she'd maybe just stop altogether.

Sam sighs and scrubs a hand through his hair. He stares at the mugshot on his laptop screen, wishing fiercely he could reach through and punch that stupid pouting mouth. “Yeah, I'm sure. And now that I'm looking for it, it even _looks_ like him.”

“It's just – I'm sorry, you probably don't want to hear this about your brother, but he's _really_ pretty.”

Sam very carefully says nothing to that. He's told her the whole story, everything except for the flirting, fondling, and kiss. He himself can't think about all that without wanting to be sick or overturn a table.

“God, Sam. What are you feeling right now? What are you going to do?”

He shakes his head, even though she can't see him. “I don't know.” He taps a finger against the table, still gazing at the laptop.

Sam hasn't thought about that night back in '91 in years, but he allows himself to now. The details are fuzzy with time, but the sour impact of loneliness and regret when his brother blew up and stormed out of the motel, slamming the door behind him – that feels almost fresh.

But Sam's not that little boy anymore, the one who waited passively around in a tiny box of a room despite his mounting panic as no one came back for him. He raised himself, educated himself, built up a new, stronger person. Someone stronger than Dean or his dad could ever be.

Dean looks so carefree in the picture. There's no shadow lurking behind those green eyes, no hint of a family lost or a life wasted. It brushes up against the same instinct that drove Sam to become a marshal in the first place; not the succor of saving people but the glee of getting the bad guy.

Sam's not that little boy anymore, but that doesn't mean he can't avenge him.

“Wait, that's a lie,” he hears himself say distantly. “I know exactly what I'm going to do.”

“Sam?” Jessica sounds tentative, maybe worried.

Sam sets his jaw and nods for the benefit of no one but himself. “I'm going to hunt his ass down and throw it back into prison where it belongs. By any means necessary.”

And now that's he thinking about it, _really_ thinking about it, the whole sex thing is the final straw. That his brother could even unknowingly fuck him up just that little bit more, after everything else, sealed the deal for Sam.

He wants Dean to feel what he felt the moment he saw the news caption: the shock, the shame, all of it. He wants to be there when the cards get flipped and Dean realizes what he's done with the person who used to be his brother.

Jess sounds definitely worried. “What do you mean, 'by any means necessary'?”

Sam blinks, comes out of his train of thought enough to realize what he'd said, and more importantly – what he'd meant.

“Er.”

“Sam, what haven't you told me?”

“Nothing!” Sam slaps the laptop shut, hiding the infuriating, bright-eyed Dean, and lets out a calming breath. “I've told you everything important. The rest is all just – details and window dressing.”

“Okay,” she doesn't sound convinced, but she let's the subject drop. Then she clears her throat. “Look, what do you say about coming up for Memorial Day? We've both got a three day weekend, so let's enjoy it. We'll have a few drinks, catch some sun, do each other's hair....”

Sam recognizes the tonal cue and laughs automatically. Privately he tries to reorient himself to this conversation. Less revenge, more friendship maintenance. Right.

“You do remember I'm not actually a girl?”

“Aw, but you've got better hair than most of my girl friends, Sam, _c'mon_ ,” she wheedles.

He squints at the calendar on his wall, the one he only remembers to use half the time and is therefore useless. He says reluctantly, “I... should probably check with Victor first. I can't remember if we had plans.”

“If you can't remember then they're not worth keeping if you do.”

“ _Jess_.” He knew she didn't approve of Victor, even though they'd never even met. It shouldn't mean anything, but he'd be lying if he said it didn't bother him a little.

“All right, all right,” she sighs. “Check with Mr. FBI and get back to me. I want to make sure the apartment is fully stocked with sangria supplies if you're coming, and I won't have a lot of time to get to the store over the next couple days.”

“I'll text you soon as I know,” he says and ends the call. He takes a deep breath before thumbing over to his contact list, preparing to call Victor, but at the last second notices the email notification.

_Sorry, babe, but I need to cancel this weekend. It's for a good reason though: great news, I've been assigned to the Winchester prison break task force. This is big. _

_I'll call you tomorrow around 5._

_-V_

“Well,” Sam says to the empty apartment. “That's just perfect.”

 


	6. Chapter 6

“You said you were going to relax,” Jess says, stepping over his body and pile of research to curl up on the coach. She looks down at him reproachfully.

“I relaxed,” he protests. “I relaxed Friday night and all day yesterday. Have the hangover to prove it.”

It's Memorial Day and Sam is feeling restless. He can't shake the idea that the trail for Dean is growing colder by the minute as he lies around uselessly on Jess's floor. He snuck out to a Kinko's around eight this morning to print off all the files he had access to. They are fanned out in front of him now. Like staring at the papers in different configurations will help him make sense of crazy contained therein.

“It's just – grave desecrations. That's weird, right?”

Jess just looks at him over her mug of coffee, the arch of her eyebrows saying it all.

“I don't remember them being sick in the head, or – or satanists, or whatever.”

Over on the coffee table, Sam's phone buzzes to life.

“Jess, could you get that?” Sam asks absently. “If it's Victor, tell him I'll him call back later.”

“If it's Victor, I'll tell him to call his wife instead,” Jess says, rolling her eyes when he scowls at her.

He doesn't pay attention to the conversation, too busy staring at a news clipping about an arson in some town in Missouri. The house burned down but the woman interviewed doesn't sound too broken up about it. Suddenly Sam wonders if _this_ is Dean's thing, charming the people whose lives he ruins.

A phone enters his eye line. Jess waggles it.

“Shockingly,” she says, “the call's for you. It's not Victor.”

Sam stands up and stretches, then scoops the phone out of her hands and flashes her a smile as he raises it to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Hey there,” Deans says, smug and warm.

Sam goes still, his eyes flicking over to Jess, who isn't paying attention anymore, having returned to her coffee and a two-weeks-old issue of _The Economist_.

Dean turns slightly awkward, his satisfaction audibly bruised. “Uh, do you ...know who this is?”

“Yes,” Sam says calmly. He walks casually over to the balcony and slides the door shut behind him. Outside is bright and hot, and he regrets not grabbing his sunglasses for all of a second before remembering that _Dean, his lowlife, possibly insane brother_ , is on the phone and then he doesn't care about anything else.

“So who answered your phone just now?”

“None of your business,” Sam says stiffly.

Dean's voice lowers, a hint of gravel roughening his words, “Just worried I read your taste wrong is all.”

Sam already feels off-kilter, a dark shiver of awareness running through his body at the exact same time he wants to yell out the truth. It's a shameful combination. He has to be patient, so all he says is: “Jess is an old friend. How'd you even get this number, by the way?”

“You had your wallet lying out on the passenger seat. Your card was in there. So is Jess the bomb shell blonde in the picture?”

Sam grits his teeth. “So you have my wallet – ”

“And your guns.”

“And my guns,” Sam agrees. “Think I could have them all back?”

“Now how would we swing that?”

Sam says pleasantly, “You could come by my desk tomorrow morning, the address is on the card, right beneath the number you just called.”

Dean laughs. “Right, maybe I could leave them with the S.W.A.T. dude who answers the door.”

“Or I know a guy on the prison break task force, maybe I can introduce you two, let you work it out.”

“That's real funny, kid, but I don't think you're going to do that.”

“No?” Sam swallows, the smile he hadn't been fully aware of dropping off his face. “Why not?”

“Because you're having too much fun,” Dean says.

Sam can hear the smirk in his voice, can picture it. He knows what that smirk feels like against his face. He needs to get control of this conversation back.

“You know, something I've been wondering as I go through your file – what ever happened to your father John?”

He's not really expecting the anger that enters Dean's voice, but he isn't surprised either. It's a sudden hot flare, just like he used to get when Sam would ask about their mother. Doesn't look like big brother ever resolved his emotional issues, what a shock.

“My dad's none of your business.”

Sam feels a little sick but he plunges forward. He has to know. “All our sources have him down as MIA, whereabouts unknown.”

“And it's going to stay that way, far as you feds are concerned.”

He pauses a second and mentally backtracks. There's no use in antagonizing Dean and blowing his only chance at getting closer just because he wants answers about his father.

“Didn't mean to press any bruises, man,” he says easily. “Just wondering, the way you're going, aren't you worried about turning out the same way? Leave your story hanging as a loose end?”

“Nah,” Dean says after a second. Bluff bravado now. “I won't go down like that.”

“No? You think you'll get out of the family business after one last score? Retire to some island with no extradition treaty, is that it?”

“...One last score, I guess that's one way of looking at it. But I don't know, man, I'm not really an island kinda guy. Partial to the Midwest, myself.”

Sam thinks of years of cornfields and plains and sagebrush passing by the backseat window, his brother and him sprawled out over the seat with toy soldiers and games of make-believe that would make the car feel as big as the world. He finds he can't say anything.

Luckily, Dean continues, unaware of Sam's white-knuckled torment. “But if you like islands, I guess we could make it an island.”

Sam blinks, confused. “What do you mean, _we_ could make it an island?”

“You and me, man. We could – ”

Sudden disturbance in the background of the call, like a door was just opened. There's wind and engines drone and another familiar voice in the background saying, “Dean, you'd better come check this out.”

“Is that Benny?” Sam asks.

“What? Oh – okay,” Dean is distracted, hurried. “Okay, uh, bye – later, Sam.”

Call disconnected.

Sam doesn't lower the phone for a long moment. When he does, he checks the number. Likely a pay phone. 304 area code. A quick search on his phone turns up West Virginia.

Jess looks up startled when Sam rushes back into the room and starts shoving all his papers back into his laptop bag.

“Sam, what's up? Who was that?” She takes in the way he's cruising around the room, gathering up his belongings. “I thought you weren't driving back until this evening.”

He glances over apologetically. “Sorry, Jess, but that was a lead. I gotta jump on it now if I'm going to do it at all.” Sam pauses by the couch, leans over and kisses her forehead.

She follows him to the door, still looking a little thrown. “A lead on Dean? Where you headed?”

“West Virginia.”

“...Okay,” she says. “Where in West Virginia?”

He shrugs and starts tugging on his shoes. “Don't know, I'll figure it out when I get there.” He pats his pockets for the keys to his rental.

“Don't you think you're being a little reckless here? Narrowing it down to an entire state isn't exactly solid intel, is it?”

"It's enough." He swings the door open and looks back at her with a grin. "If there's one thing the marshal service teaches you, it's how to hunt down the bad guy.”

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

That night, sitting at a table in a shitty motel room just over the West Virginia border, Sam tries to ignore how much his surroundings are in danger of tipping him into a tailspin of sense memories.

He goes through his files. They're not as extensive as the Bureau's; Sam really should get in contact with Victor, maybe convince him to let him on the taskforce. He doesn't want to catch Dean as part of a group, but he'd at least like a peek at their intel.

After a couple of hours reading and cross-checking, Sam thinks he knows a little more about his family's M.O.:

It always starts with some mention of a recent death in the news. The weirder the better. He doesn't think the weirdness is important, except for how maybe Dean gets a kick out of it; he remembers him liking the weirdest tourist trap crap when they were young. A fresh death means the soil is still loose – easier to dig up. Rob the grave. Burn the remains to ...leave less evidence of what he took?

It's the only theory Sam's got that makes even a little sense, which is saying something, because it's still fucking bizarre. Why not stick to credit card fraud and regular burglaries? Does Dean gets some sick pleasure from digging up fresh corpses?

Sam shudders and slaps the manila folder closed.

He goes to bed and sweats through the cheap polyester sheets from nightmares about losing his mind, of digging up graves next to his brother and pinning him back against the cool damp soil. He wakes up with a poisonous hard-on and a roiling stomach.

He prays whatever issues Dean has, they're not genetic.

–

He hits Morgantown, West Virginia around noon the next day.

Morgantown is a decent-sized city for West Virginia and about forty miles up the freeway from the truck stop Dean had called him from the day before. The top headline of Morgantown's _The Dominion Post_ three days ago? “Area Woman Found Heartless in Honda.”

It's a stretch. Hell, it's practically a leap of faith. But the story sounds like prime Dean-bait to Sam, so he spends all morning driving across the state, through Appalachian strangeness, in the hopes of finding his brother.

It's exactly what 8-year-old Sammy dreamed about doing in the early days of foster care. The difference is 22-year-old Sam is not going to greet him with a hug, but a pair of handcuffs and his Miranda rights.

–

Mrs. Leroy was the last person to see the victim alive; Katie Marshall had been her live-in nurse. Sam isn't really interested in her, though – he's interested in who else might have been sniffing around the case. There were a handful of notes about _impersonating an officer_ in the files. He thinks maybe Dean scopes out the bereaved to see what kind of payload is involved.

“Thank you for taking the time to speak with me, ma'am,” Sam says as the old woman moves slowly around her kitchen, loading an improbable amount of cookies, cakes, and brownies onto a plate. Sam had politely declined the sweets. She had not listened.

“The other detective _loved_ these pastries, they're from a local bakery just down the street,” she says.

They move into the living room and sit down on shapely floral-patterned chairs that are somehow hard as rocks. Sam tries to project an open and empathetic visage over the plate of pastries in his lap.

“What was the other detective's name?” Sam asks.

“Didn't you meet the boys down at the station?” Mrs. Leroy asks, puzzled.

Sam silently curses. “I wanted to talk to you before I went and interviewed the local force. Don't want to step on anyone's jurisdictional toes until I have to.” He smiles. Deliberate dimpling.

She makes an assenting noise and tilts her head, thinking. “Detective ...Bonham, I think he said. It's funny, but I suppose other people out there must have that name.” The name means nothing to Sam, but he writes it down dutifully. “Be sure to tell him hello from me, would you? He was such a nice, young man. Handsome too.”

Sam pauses, eyes flicking upward.

“What's funny about that name, out of curiosity?” He asks, thinking _handsome_.

She flaps a hand at him. “Oh, I suppose you're too young to know. There was a time when Bonham was practically a household name. I was a little too old to enjoy them, but you know....” She seems to lose the thread of what she was saying and focuses in on the plate in his lap. “Do you like the pastries, dear? They're from a local bakery just down the street.”

Sam assures he does, all the while gritting his teeth. He's got a feeling in his gut that Dean was here but is starting to think this source might be a bust.

“Katie always bought them for me. Lovely girl.” Mrs. Leroy's face twitches and crumples a little, the lines around his mouth and eyes contorting tiredly. Sam thinks grief must be exhausting when you're old.

He cocks his head. “Was she acting at all strange before she died?” Perhaps his theory was wrong and Dean was somehow involved in the death itself.

“She was frightened,” comes the simple but surprising reply.

Sam frowns. “Of what, did she say?”

She sniffs and rummages in a pocket for a moment before pulling out a handkerchief. She pats her face gingerly and her voice becomes slightly muffled. “She said – she said she thought someone was following her. And she didn't say it because she didn't want to worry me, but I know she thought someone might have been lurking around the house.”

“This house?”

As if on cue – a loud noise from the back yard.

It was sharp, like the snap of a branch, like someone took an inopportune step. Both Sam and Mrs. Leroy turn their heads. Mrs. Leroy stops dabbing her eyes, her fingers trembling around her handkerchief.

Sam crosses the room and flattens himself against the wall next to the window. He tries to project a calm and comforting demeanor towards the old woman as he racks the slide on his .40 S&W. Judging from the way her eyes widen, he doesn't do a good job. Oh well.

Heart beating wildly, Sam uses the barrel of the gun to lift the curtain and peek out into the backyard.

A black lab lifts its head from where its sniffing a bush and looks over.

Sam exhales and looks over at her with a faint smile. “It's fine, there's nothing out there except your dog.”

Mrs. Leroy is confused. “I don't have a dog.”

Sam raises his eyebrows and looks back out to the yard, but the dog is gone. He shrugs and lets the curtain drop again.

–

Sam is walking down the block to his rental when Victor calls with the exciting news that “they” have Dean.

“Wait. You've got him?” Sam's heart stutters, surprise and disappointment colliding.

“No,” Victor says grudgingly. “But we think we know where he's holed up. We're on our way there now.”

“Where?”

“Some small city in West Virginia. Morgantown? The person who left the tip said they'd seen him checking into the Sapphire Hotel.”

Sam feels a thrill of vindication. “Morgantown,” he repeats and grins hard.

Victor isn't paying attention. “Listen, babe, I gotta go, the team – ”

Sam jumps in, “Wait, Victor. If I meet you at the hotel, can I be on the task force?”

“How could you possibly....”

Sam says, “I'm maybe, sort of, already in Morgantown.”

A beat of silence, then: “Sam, you told me you were taking some time off work to recover from the kidnapping.”

Sam should probably be concerned that his quasi-boyfriend doesn't know him well enough to see through that line. In his mind, Jess is giving him a knowing look.

“I am recovering,” Sam says defensively. “Finding and arresting Dean Winchester will do wonders for my emotional well-being, you have no idea.”

Victor sighs. “I'd be a hypocrite to try and talk you out of it.” And this is why Sam is still seeing Victor – despite their difference in age and careers, the man always accords him a default level of respect. It's something you tend to hunger for when you grow up in the system. “Okay, look – go stake out the hotel and wait for us. You're not to make any moves on Winchester, just call if you spot him.”

“Got it. Thank you.”

“...Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“I mean it. Do not, under any circumstances, try to take him down by yourself. The man's a dangerous psycho.”

Sam agrees, reluctant and somber, and ends the call.

–

He stakes out the Sapphire Hotel from his rental, sits there for three hours as his back slowly crunches itself into a achy shape. There is no sign of Dean or Benny. Sam wants to go into the place, find the right room number, and just knock on the door, see what happens. But he waits.

And waits.

And …waits.

His patience and deduction skills are rewarded with being benched immediately. Victor's boss takes one look at him, sniffs at his marshal badge and youth, and hands him a radio with a snide instruction to stand lookout in the lobby as the rest of the team climbs the stairs to Room 402.

Victor tosses him an apologetic shrug and hurries along next to the other Bureau guys, every one of them more uptight and charmless than the last.

Sam sits on a cheap vinyl chair in the lobby, fuming. He flips the radio over and over in his hands, leg bouncing impatiently up and down. He's wondering – should he ignore orders and go upstairs? Should he go check out the parking ramp in the basement? Anything would be better than sitting here at the kids' table.

People drift in and out of the lobby. Phones ring. A bent-over old man inches across the floor and arrives at the elevator just as it chimes and slides its door open.

Sam stares.

Dean stares back.

Dean, after a second, lifts a hand and gives him a small wave.

Sam stares.

The elevator door closes again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> winchesterchola [drew this utterly adorable panel comic of the last scene](http://winchesterchola.tumblr.com/post/130385360199/people-drift-in-and-out-of-the-lobby-phones-ring), go check it out!


	8. Chapter 8

**Interlude I**

 

“He just ...looked right at me,” Dean says blankly as the elevator creaks its way down to the basement.

“Who?” Benny says.

“Sam.”

That gets his attention. “Wait – Sam _Wesson_?”

“Yeah. He's in the lobby.” Dean twists his mouth to the side and chews on his lip, weighing the stupidity of taking the elevator back upstairs. If Sam's here, other feds are too, probably. So it would be pretty stupid. But then, more compelling: Sam. He's _here_.

“He's in the lobby?”

“Yeah.” Dean eyes the elevator button.

“Dean, we need to get out of here.” And before Dean can so much as twitch towards the button, the doors are opening again, and Benny's hauling him out. He'd trying resisting, but, well – vampire strength.

“He just sat there, looking right at me,” he complains. They jog across the lot to where his baby is waiting. “Didn't jump up or look excited or _nothing_.”

“Brother, you need to get your head on straight about that boy,” Benny tells him as they squeal tires out of the ramp and away from the feds and Sam.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My most heartfelt gratitude to espionne for betaing!

**Part III**

  
  


“Well they can't have gone far,” one agent says after they all regroup in the lobby. “Did anyone see which direction the car took? Maybe we can get a surveillance cam from one of the nearby gas stations.”

Orders are radioed out to the local police to put up roadblocks. The bureau sends out APBs on Dean and Benny and the car, but Sam doesn't get the impression that anything will come of it. Dean's car apparently has quite the reputation among the more experienced members of the task force.

Victor says, “All we know is that it's some black muscle car. Every time we try to bring it up on footage, the image is too fuzzy to make out the exact make and model.”

Sam, standing silent and furious off to the side, thinks he knows the make and model, though he can't understand how it could still be running. 

A 1967 Chevy Impala. He wouldn't even have to explain how he knows. They don't need the details, how he'd lived out of it for seven and a half years. He could say Dean bragged while they were together in the trunk. It sounds like the kind of thing Dean would do. 

The words are on the tip of his tongue, but for reasons he doesn't quite understand, he can't bring himself to say them. 

–

“He _waved_ at you?” Jess asks. 

Sam sighs and tugs his tie loose. “Yeah,” he says shortly.

“Well,” she says, sounding amused. “Did you wave back?”

What Sam had done, after the elevator doors closed and cut Dean off from view again, was sit and stare dumbly across the lobby. He was still sitting and staring when Victor radioed down to say there was no sign of Dean or Benny in the hotel room.

“Uh, there wasn't any time.” Sam collapses on the edge of his motel bed and toes off his shoes. He falls back and stares at the water stains on the ceiling.

By now, Sam is sure, Dean will have split town. He has no reason to risk getting caught again for whatever prize he had been hoping to get with the Marshall woman's death.

He'd blown it. There is a tight ball of anger sitting in his stomach, which felt normal enough, but it's not usually self-directed like this. He fucked up. Caught one glimpse of his brother and just completely blanked. It was worse than a rookie move; it was simply unforgivable.

“...Sam?” Jess says from far away. “Are you okay?”

Why hadn't he jumped up and gone after them? It would have been simple: take the stairs and head them off in the parking lot. So why did he just sit there like a fool?

It comes down to only one thing; he hadn't been prepared to see Dean again in person. Looking at a mugshot or hearing his disembodied voice over the phone is a far cry from seeing him in the flesh, watching him move and – _emote_.

“Sam?”

Sam checks back in. “Yeah, I'm here. Sorry.”

“Look, Sam, maybe you should head back home, give this up. Let the bureau take over.”

Sam huffs a laugh. There's not much humor in it. “Are you really saying I should let Victor handle it? _You're_ saying that?”

“You think I don't remember how obsessive you get? Tell me, when's the last time you ate something?”

Sam tries to recall if he'd taken a bite of any of those sweets Mrs. Leroy had foisted upon him. “I had a big breakfast.”

“Uh huh.”

“You know,” he says, “I'd order dinner right now, but my phone's otherwise occupied.”

“You're hilarious, Wesson,” Jess sighs and he can hear her toss her pencil down. He pictures her sitting at her desk, hair tried back in a braid, glasses and pajamas on, a stack of books piled all around, and he smiles.

“I should let you get back to studying,” he says.

“And order yourself some food,” she prompts.

“And order myself some food.”

He says his goodbye and ends the call, lets the phone fall to the mattress.

Without the distraction of Jess's voice, the room seems even more depressing than before. The sun had begun to set at some point during the conversation and is casting long shadows through the gauzy curtains blocking off the parking lot. Sam looks around and wonders what the fuck he should do next.

Dean leaving has effectively reset his search. Short of him calling from another pay phone somewhere, Sam has no clue as to his whereabouts or plans.

It's too easy for someone to disappear in this country, he thinks bitterly.

–

Around eleven, Sam pulls on his shoes and shuffles outside to grab a Coke from the the vending machine two doors down. He cracks it open while standing there and takes a sip, breathing in the warm night air.

He turns around to go back to his room and nearly stumbles over the dog.

After a moment, he realizes it must be the same one from earlier that afternoon, the one that had been poking around Mrs. Leroy's back yard. He figures it must be stray, though it's a friendly one.

“Hey there, buddy,” he murmurs, slowly offering his open hand. The dog sniffs it carefully before giving a lick, and he takes that as permission to reach up and scratch behind its ears.

Sam had always wanted a dog. He'd begged for one when he was real little, but it hadn't been practical for life on the road. Later, only one of the homes he stayed in ever had one, and then it had been one of those small yappy types. It had hated Sam, and he spent three months getting nibbled on by tiny sharp teeth before finally getting transferred again.

Life with the marshal service wasn't conducive to having a dog either, but if Sam ever got one, he'd want one like this one: large, calm, and friendly.

“What's a nice pooch like you doing out on the streets, huh?” He continues to pat the dog as the can in his hand slowly perspired.

He isn't sure what makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up. There's no change in the sounds of the night – the passing vehicles on the highway, the early summer cicadas waking in the scrub grass of the motel's periphery. It all stays the same. Maybe it's that the dog under his hands has gone oddly still, ears pricked and tail flagged. Its staring out into the night and Sam straightens up and looks too.

Dean and Benny melt out of the darkness and approach him on silent feet.

Benny's sniffing the air and murmuring under his breath. There's something startlingly unnatural about his movements and mannerisms, and then there's Dean.

Dean and the gun he has pointed straight at Sam.

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Profuse thank you to my beta espionne, who saved me from myself in this chapter.

Sam grips the soda can and thinks about the holster still underneath his jacket, the inches between it and his gun hand hanging at his side. The split second or two it would take to draw.

“Dean.” He takes in the gun calmly and doesn't move. His eyes flick up to meet Dean's and he says evenly, “And here I thought we had something special between us.”

“Oh, you and me are going to be dynamite, Sammy.” Dean says seriously. “But first I need you to step away from the dog.”

Sam blinks, brow furrowing. He looks down at the dog, meeting its large chocolate eyes, and then back up at the two men. He reevaluates the angle and scope of Dean's gun and realizes that it's not pointed at him.

“Oh my god,” he says, completely aghast and forgetting himself. “You kill dogs too?”

“Sam – ”

“What kind of sick fuck did you become?”

Dean’s expression flickers, tense and impatient. “I don't kill – look, you don't get it, that thing at your feet isn't exactly Lassie, okay.”

The dog whines and backs up, furry padded feet tap-tapping against the concrete. Its warm weight settles sideways against his leg, and Sam knows he'll die before he lets it get shot.

He sees Dean's finger tighten over the trigger and steps to the left in front of the gun.

“Goddamn it, Sam!” Dean releases the trigger.

And that's when he pulls his own weapon. “Put the gun on the ground and back up.”

“You really don’t want to do this,” Dean says.

“Dean, I'm losing patience with your boy here,” Benny says, but he doesn't look the least bit put out by the reversal of the situation.

“That goes for you too,” Sam tells him shortly.

“I don't have a gun.” Benny doesn’t look at him, gaze still unsettlingly fixed on the dog.

“That's too bad. Maybe you should have brought one of mine. Now back up.”

But Benny doesn't back up and Dean is still talking, trying to distract Sam. There’s a taut edge to his voice, and he looks like he’s barely restraining himself from grabbing Sam and shaking him.

“Look man, if you could just give us a chance to explain things, you'd understand why this dog has to die.”

Sam darts a glance at him. “Do you hear yourself?”

“It's dangerous, Sam.” His tone sounds reasonable; he sounds insane.

“A matter for animal control, then.”

“I'm serious. There was this woman from like a week ago, her name was Katie Marshall – ”

Sam grits his teeth. “You've got to be kidding me with this crap.”

The dog tries to slink away, pressing in close to the wall and with its tail between its legs. With a deep, almost inhuman growl, Benny lunges forward after it.

Sam pivots and fires. Then he falls back, shoulder blades slamming against the wall of the building. His gun is still up but his hands are numb.

He shot him.

He shot a man. He _killed_...

...Except Benny isn't falling down. The bullet wound in the middle of his chest is obscenely obvious, the starburst hole and blood highlighted by his white shirt. But he isn't falling down. Or even acting hurt.

Sam's own chest is heaving with adrenaline and shock. He stares at Benny and then turns his head and stares at Dean.

Dean eyes Sam and looks a little chagrined about whatever he sees. He shrugs awkwardly. “I swear there's a simple explanation for all of this.”

In the relative silence of the aftermath, only broken by Sam's panting breath, Benny turns easy-as-you-please to the dog and says, “I think you'd better change back, or my friend here will just shoot you right now.”

Dumbly, Sam looks on. He doesn't think his body is prepared for anymore shocks, except then the large, calm, and friendly dog changes into a man.

Sam scrambles away from the wall. “What the _fuck_ – ”

“Now I don't know about you, Sammy,” Dean says smugly, gesturing with his gun to encompass the full nakedness of the human being in front of them. “But he isn't exactly something I'd want sleeping at the end of my bed.”

“What the fuck,” Sam says again, because, really, it bears repeating.

The man's got carrot orange hair, watery blue eyes, and pock-marked skin. He doesn't look anything like the dog, which is honestly an observation Sam's never had to make before.

“You licked my hand,” Sam says blankly.

The man twitches, a pained look upon his face. “The dog licked your hand.”

“And you're apparently the dog. So you, a grown man, licked my hand.”

“Way to focus on the important details, Sam,” Dean says.

Benny says, “I think we're getting off-subject here.”

“I know what subject you'd prefer, Vampire,” the dog man says heatedly.

 _Vampire_ , Sam mouths to himself.

“Do you, because it has to do with that nurse you tore the heart out of last week.”

Sam mentally slaps himself across the face. He's a federal marshal; he needs to be able to deal with this. “Is that true,” he asks the man sharply. “Did you kill that woman?”

“Does it matter what I say?” Comes the bitter reply. “You hunters are going to kill me anyway.”

Hunters. Sam latches on to the term and files it away.

“It's always the 'woe is me, hunters won't leave me alone to eat people' with your kind,” Dean says. He no longer looks amused. “And don't tell me you have to do it. Look at Benny. He's practically a vegetarian.”

“Well,” Benny says meaningfully, a thick twang entering his voice. “I make some exceptions.” And then he smiles at the dog man.

Sam's gaze catches and sticks on the smile. It's a horrifying sight. The stretched crescent of his mouth is filling up slowly with elongated teeth, each one of them pointed like a spike.

He is so busy staring that he doesn’t pay enough attention to the other freakshow on the scene.

The dog man grabs Sam and hauls him in like a shield. He doesn’t have a knife to his neck or anything, but damned if Sam can’t move from his iron grip. Apparently turning into a dog isn’t his only trick.

And up comes Dean’s gun again. “Let him go.”

With Sam as his human shield, the dog man doesn’t hold back his contempt. “You’re not going to shoot me, you might miss and get him instead.”

“Who’s to say I care about that?” Dean asks. They all just look at him and he twitches irritably. He doesn’t remove his gaze from the dog man, though, and if looks could kill this situation would be resolved very quickly.  

“Wait a second,” Sam speaks up. The grip on his upper arms tightens at the sound of his voice. “I can't let you guys kill him. If he did actually murder that woman, he should be arrested and tried in a court of law.”

“That's cute,” Dean says after a moment of stunned silence. “But how are you going to convince anyone he did it without bringing up the tiny fact that he can turn into an animal?”

“Well... who says I have to?” Sam says. He just needs to keep talking. Given enough time, his brain will come up with a Plan B sooner or later. “I mean, why do you allow things like him – ”

“I'm not a thing,” the dog man says hotly. “My name's David.”

Sam amends, “ – why do you let the Davids of the world just wander around killing people instead of alerting the proper authorities? This is a huge oversight for law enforcement. If we knew what we were up against, we could conduct public awareness campaigns, revamp neighborhood watch programs.” He meets Dean’s eyes. “I mean, this is a real gamechanger.”

He'd used his most reasonable tone, but Dean immediately says, “You're insane.” The aim of his gun is unwavering but his eyes flicker from Sam to David and back.  

“I agree with lover boy,” David says. Distracted by the conversation, his grip on Sam has relaxed slightly. “I don't want the world knowing about me.”

Eyes still on Dean, willing him to understand his plan, Sam says, “You _kill_ people, you don't get a vote.” And then he throws himself away from David.

Dean shoots at the same moment and wings the dog man, causing him to spin back and collapse against the wall of the motel.

Sam is going to call for a stop in the action, has a genuine argument for going through official channels and arresting the man, except before he can get a word out, Benny is moving forward in a blur of speed and chomping down on David's neck.

–

“I don't know about you, but I'm starving,” Dean says. “You get dinner yet?”

It’s about ten minutes later. Benny and David have disappeared from the parking lot, leaving Dean to deal with a slightly shell-shocked Sam.  

He's making his way towards Sam's motel room as if he knows which one it is, and Sam, badly off-balance and a little at a loss, can only trail after him. His head is still spinning with the events of the night; with the endless possibilities of there being monsters out in the world; with the memory of David sagging, weak from blood loss, into Benny's arms; with the fact that his long lost brother maybe isn't a deranged murderer.

Once inside, Dean immediately goes to grab up the pizza advertisement sitting on the bedside table.

“Meat Lover’s okay?” He asks Sam, already typing the number into his phone.

Sam blinks uncertainly back at him and hopes fervently that wasn't suppose to be a come-on. “No olives or green peppers, otherwise I don't care.”

Dean makes an assenting noise and puts the phone up to his ear. Sam waffles by the door for a few seconds before deciding to sit down. He isn't sure he'll be able to eat anything; his stomach is feeling a little unsettled.

Once the food has been ordered, Dean turns back and Sam is ready with some questions.

“Where is Benny going? And what's going to happen to the – whatever that man was.”

“Skinwalker,” Dean supplies. “And Benny's going to have his dinner, then kill him and dispose of the body. Probably by burning, but we're not usually quite as picky about that when it's a shifter type.”

“I see,” Sam says. He looks down at his hands, studies his fingers spread out over the tabletop. Wonders if David is dead yet or bleeding out as they speak.

Dean walks up to Sam's chair, steps in close enough for his legs to bump Sam's knees. Sam blinks up at him and Dean bounces his eyebrows and smiles.

He gives him his most incredulous look. “Are you fucking kidding me right now?”

Dean's eyebrows collapse. “Uh, no?”

“I'm not that easy, dude.”

“You're not?” Dean says and shrugs. “Well, _I_ am. No judgment coming from this corner.”

Sam's feels peculiarly embarrassed, like he can't believe his brother just said that. The emotion is at once bizarre and utterly _right_.

“I suppose you're in shock or something,” Dean muses, thankfully backing completely away and sitting in the other chair. “Wouldn't be right, taking advantage of you in your delicate state.”

Sam feels a frisson of irritation. “Are you trying to _reverse psychology_ me into putting out?”

“What? No.” Dean makes this absurdly transparent 'that's crazy' face and looks away, drumming his fingers on the tabletop.

Now that they're alone and neither one of them is in a rush to escape or catch the other or be killed by a shapeshifting dog, Sam finds himself ...waiting.

Waiting for some flicker of realization to come over Dean's face, or even an emotion – regret, sadness – anything to hint that he is just the slightest bit reminded of his onetime brother. Hell, Sam'll take deja vu. It's not like he looks or acts like he did when he was eight, but the two of them were almost never apart back then. If anyone should be able to reach through the years to see that boy, it would be Dean.

But Dean just continues to grin at him like he’s a stranger.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to espionne for the prompt beta work (and on a Monday)!

“Grave desecration?”

“Ghosts. Gotta salt and burn the remains.”

Sam makes a note and then looks at the next entry dubiously. “How about ...cattle mutilation?”

Dean talks through his next mouthful of pizza. Sam wrinkles his nose; at least he'd picked up table manners somewhere in his tour of foster homes.

“Wasn't me. I was tracking the cattle deaths, came across this group of hippie pacifist vampires. It's how I met Benny, actually.”

Sam nods and makes another note. They were mostly finished with dinner and, while part of Sam wanted nothing more than to sleep and let his brain process everything, the rest of him was burning with a restless energy. So he'd suggested they go through Dean's rap sheet, wanting to know more about the world of hunting. Dean, for his part, had shown a disturbing amount of glee at the idea of seeing his own criminal file.

He seemed to find Sam's single-minded focus amusing. And if he kept giving him these long, lingering looks that ran from his head to his toes – well, maybe that's part of why Sam was focusing so hard on the task at hand and avoiding the sleep issue.

Sam kept wanting to reach out and – grip his shoulder or just touch him somehow. In a purely brotherly way, of course. But he knew Dean would read it wrong. Besides, Sam really shouldn't start making any overtures before he got his own thoughts and emotions in order.

A few hours ago he had been determined to arrest Dean and throw away the key. It was supposed to be payback for the years Sam spent pointlessly yearning for his family. He was at a loss for how he was supposed to feel and what he was supposed to do, now that he knew Dean was innocent.

“Credit card fraud?”

Dean shrugs, unconcerned. “Job doesn't exactly come with a salary.”

Okay, mostly innocent.

He sighs and tosses his notepad down on the side table. Rubs his eyes and damn near cracks his jaw in a wide yawn. When he looks back up, Dean is watching him with a soft look in his eyes. Something lurches in the vicinity of Sam's chest and he immediately climbs to his feet and turns away.

“I think I'm going to hit the sack,” he says, back to his brother as he rifles through his duffle bag for a needlessly long time. “Been a long day. So, um – is Benny coming back for you, or...” He stumbles to a stop, not knowing how to finish the sentence without sounding like he was inviting Dean to stay.

Well – Dean _should_ stay. Sam has more questions. And the idea of his brother just taking off again after he finally has him is a little more than he can stand. The question is how to convince Dean to stay without sounding like he wanted something more.

Dean's voice is a little cautious. “Benny mostly does his own thing, we check in every couple days or so if there's a hunt. I was, uh, kind of hoping to crash here, if you don't mind sharing the room. I mean, I don't know your habits, but there's two beds.”

Sam turns back around, nodding and trying to hide his relief. “Sure, that's – that's fine. I have more questions, but it's late, so, you know.” He nods again, like an idiot. Dean, eyebrows arched a little, nods gamely back.

Sam flees to the bathroom to end the awkward scene.

–

He spends the entire three minutes of brushing his teeth – exactly one and a half for both top and bottom – thinking carefully about what he's going to say when he walks back out into the other room. He strips down to his boxers and a shirt and hesitates for several ridiculous seconds before swinging the door back open.

Dean is sitting on the edge of the bed closer to the door and looking down at his phone. He's bare-chested and only wearing a pair of black boxer briefs. Sam stares.

Dean has scars scattered all over his body. A set of five lines that look like claw marks sit just below his ribs, like some nightmare creature had tried to rip his guts out. Indeterminate wrinkling and pigmentation peek out from the line of his boxers high on the inside of his right thigh. A small pinch of pink mars his left shoulder; Sam instantly recognizes it as an old bullet wound.

The scars should be off-putting. Or upsetting, at least. They should stop one's eye from lingering over the otherwise even stretch of honey skin over muscle; from tracing the curve of those ridiculous bow legs; from studying the oddly vulnerable line of his pale ankles.

Dean has noticed his stare and is grinning brightly over at him. Sam swallows and averts his gaze. He waits for the sly joke or invitation, but to his surprise neither come.

He gets into bed, head determinedly down, and Dean follows suit. Instead of settling in the middle of his mattress, the man shuffles down close to the right side, like he wants to be able to reach over the aisle between the beds and touch Sam if he needs to. Like he's hoping Sam will maybe get out of his own bed and climb on to the left side of Dean's.

Sam resolutely switches the lamp off, casting the room into darkness.

“Hey, Sam?”

He tenses. _Here it comes._

“...Yeah?”

“What's the story with your necklace? It looks old.”

Sam's hand automatically comes up and fingers the amulet. Usually it's hidden away, tucked safely under all his layers. He got into the habit less out of a desire for secrecy and more because the damn thing had a tendency to bounce up and hit him in the face.

Keeping it under wraps is easier anyway, because the amulet is actually tangled up in the issue of his family; it was supposed to be a present for his father the year they abandoned him. At first he had held on to it, waited to give it to him. Ever since Sam turned sixteen, it has only served as a reminder that his father hadn't wanted him.

“It was just a gift from a friend,” Sam says eventually. “Doesn't really mean anything.”

They lapse into silence except for the occasional rustle of fabric and creak of a mattress spring.

Sam’s not used to sleeping in the same room as someone, hasn’t had to do it since he lived with Jess at Stanford. He thinks the fact that he used to share a room and even a bed with this particular companion should render him sleepless and tense.

Instead, he finds himself slipping off almost immediately, lulled by the rhythmic sound of Dean’s breathing a few feet away.

–

Sam wakes up the next morning to find that Dean has gotten up and fetched breakfast for them without somehow disturbing Sam in the process. It puts him immediately off-balance, his body's apparent trust of the other man. So he's maybe a little moody as he sips his coffee and picks at the omelet Dean brought.

He needs somehow to balance Dean's interest in him while warding off his advances long enough to get the information he needs. He’s self-aware enough to admit that he likes having Dean’s attention focused solely on him. It’s the twisted shadow of the younger brother in him. If things were different he could just clue Dean in, and it’d be back slaps and Miller Time.

But he's not about to show his cards to Dean before he's sure what the other man is holding. That'd be bad poker and Sam? Is really fucking good at poker.

He comforts himself with the thought that he can arrest Dean at any time.

“Are you normally this dark and brooding in the morning?” Dean asks, studying him over his own cup of coffee. When Sam raises his head and looks at him, he quirks his mouth into a questioning smile. His gaze is warm.

“You know, I'm seeing someone,” he says and is promptly mortified.

“Seeing someone. Okay.” There's an insulting amount of disbelief in Dean's voice.

He bristles. “It's pretty serious.”

“Sam,” Dean says slowly. “You chased me across the country at the drop of a hat. Through _Appalachia_.”

“You do recall it was a criminal investigation, not a romantic pursuit, right?” He'd nearly said _manhunt_ , but no way is he giving Dean that kind of opening.

Dean just sits back and looks vaguely put out. Sam might even say he looks _sulky_. He hurriedly moves to distract him and asks how long he's been hunting.

Dean shrugs easily. “All my life, really. Guess you might call it the family business of sorts.”

Sam tallies it all up. “So that's why – you moved around so much? Your father was hunting these things, monsters?”

Dean, expression a little dampened by the mention of John Winchester, just nods and shrugs again. Gets up and wanders over to look out the window at the parking lot where they killed a man a little over twelve hours ago.

Sam wants to press the issue, ask about where John is, about what happened to the little brother just barely hinted at in Dean's file, about Christmas Eve circa 1991. But he doesn't ask. Not yet. He knows how to eke information out of someone so they're not even aware what they're giving away. It's all about patience and subtlety.

Still, he can't help but add quietly, “Sounds kinda lonely.”

And Dean – Dean pauses.

Staring at his tensed shoulders, the back of his head, Sam wonders if this is it, if he'll get some sign that Dean cares about his missing brother. His heart starts to beat a little faster.

Then Dean turns around and flashes him a smile, all teeth and leer. “No shortage of company to be found on the road, if you look in the right places.”

Ignoring the sinking feeling in his chest, Sam says, “Well, that's a surefire way to get someone in bed, allude to all the shady truck stop sex you've had.”

“I always wrap it up,” Dean says virtuously.

Sam just gives him an unimpressed look and then settles into being quietly appalled at the fact that, despite Sam’s intentions, they seem to keep stumbling into flirting.

–

Tension mounts after they finish breakfast.

Sam is at a loss for an excuse to keep Dean close. The man isn't the psycho killer he'd thought, which means Sam no longer technically has a reason for chasing him. And Dean's finished up the hunt, he's going to probably want to hit the road again. He's going to wonder why Sam wants to stick around if he's not angling for a hookup.

Dean checks his phone again and chews his mouth. He seems to be waiting for something, but Sam is clueless as to what it could be. He focuses on packing up his things, half his attention too-aware of Dean doing the same, unconsciously performing the same check-out checklist ingrained in them both from a young age.

But eventually everything is set and ready to go and they have no more stalling tactics left.

“Hey, I was wondering,” he says at last, watching as Dean stills and turns to look expectantly at him. “Would you mind if I – do you maybe want to...?”

“Yeah?” Dean says, sounding guardedly hopeful.

Sam takes a breath and plunges forward. “You wanna show me the ropes? Maybe take me along on a hunt or something? I meant what I said yesterday, if these things are out there, I want to know how to take them out.”

To his immense relief, Dean doesn't seem interested in questioning his motives. He smiles and readily agrees.

“But, dude,” he says, stopping Sam before he leaves the room with a hand on his chest. “You gotta get rid of that rental. Man doesn't hunt out of a Honda.”

–

Unbelievably, Sam lets himself get blindsided.

It's not like he doesn't know what Dean is driving. Even if the vague description the task force had come up with hadn't immediately recalled the family car, Dean's enthusiastic chatter about it as they shoulder their bags and walk the quarter mile to where it is parked surely would. So it's not like Sam didn't know he was about to climb into the Impala.

But he didn't really _know_ , you know?

They round the corner of the block, and there she sits, large, black, and gleaming. Dean immediately goes to her, running a hand down her side like a cowboy patting his horse's rump, and opens the trunk. Then he turns and looks back at Sam, who is just standing and staring like an idiot.

There was a time in Sam's life where he would have given _anything_ to see this car parked at the curb outside.

“She's a real beauty, right?” Deans says, as if it's only to be expected if people occasionally have small breakdowns over his car. “Was my Dad's.”

At the mention of their father, Sam's brain kicks back into gear and he starts forward and hefts his duffle in next to Dean's. After Dean shuts the door, Sam has to pause again when he spots the rough-etched _S.W._ and _D.W._ on the trunk's inside shelf.

Throat tight, some horrendous anxiety clawing away at his stomach, Sam rounds the car to the passenger side. He doesn't look into the backseat to see if the army man is still stuck in the ashtray. He doesn't lean over the windshield to see if the legos are still stuck in the vents.

Dean climbs into the car, and he has no choice but to follow suit.

The smell hits him like a punch to the gut. Leather and old coffee and some vague mixture of dust and oil, though Sam knows John kept the car's interior as pristine as he could. It's the smell of his childhood home, and he'd completely forgotten it until this moment.

“Hey, you alright?” Dean asks and it's only the clear-eyed look of genuine concern, the complete lack of suspicion in his eyes, that gives Sam the strength to wipe his expression clean and assure him in a voice approaching normal that he's just _fine_.

The engine rumbles to life around him and at last, after fourteen years, carries him away.


	12. Chapter 12

**Interlude II**

 

Type: Text message  
From: J   
Received: Jun 1, 2:34 AM

_Why did I decide to clerk for Taylor instead of my mom’s firm again? Who let me do that, was it you?_

 

Type: Text message  
From: J    
Received: Jun 1, 3:01 AM

_I was about to fall asleep at my desk when I had horrible thought. Bradys birthday party. You better be back by then. Im not going alone._

 

Type: Email message  
From: Victor   
Received: Jun 1, 6:48 AM

_Sam, I know you were disappointed yesterday, but you need to be patient in these types of investigations. We just got a possible hit out of Eastern PA, let me know if you want to ride with me._

_-V_

 

Type: Text message  
From: Victor   
Received: Jun 1, 7:01 AM

_I swear we’re going to have a nice long weekend away somewhere when this is all over._

 

Type: Text message  
From:  Victor    
Received: Jun 1, 7:02 AM

_I’m thinking lobster. Steak? Lobster and steak._

 

Type: Text message  
From:  VAMPIRATE    
Received: Jun 1, 12:22 AM

_SKINWALKER’S TAKEN CARE OF._

 

Type: Text message  
From:  VAMPIRATE    
Received: Jun 1, 12:59 AM

_TOOK THE WALTER VISA. GOING TO DROP SOME BREADCRUMBS IN PITTSBURGH._

 

Type: Text message  
From:  VAMPIRATE    
Received: Jun 1, 5:36 AM

_BE CAREFUL WITH THE KID. HE’S HIDING SOMETHING I COULD SMELL IT._

 

Type: Text message  
From: Dr. Badass   
Received: Jun 1, 11:08 AM

_No dice on Wesson. Electronic record dead ends with a group home out of Boulder, followed by Stanford University._

 

Type: Text message  
From: Dr. Badass    
Received: Jun 1, 11:15 AM

_Chill dude. Not saying I can’t dig up more, but it’ll take longer. You’re going to owe me your body weight in PBR._


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Overwhelming gratitude to espionne, who helped improve this chapter greatly.
> 
> The next chapter is already written, so it should be posted in quicker succession than this one was. Thanks for everyone's patience. :)

**Part IV**

 

Dean only listens to classic rock. On _cassette tapes_. He is so proficient at tracking that when he releases the button, he can bellow out the exact lyrics on the tape, even if it's mid-line.

Five hours in, he has yet to make a mistake.

During this time, Sam goes from amused to weary to homicidal before somehow circling back around and landing on unwillingly fond. Like seemingly everything about Dean, his music habits are so unapologetically and undeniably _him_ that one either has to accept it or start plotting a murder. Sam chooses the former option. For now.

Dean, as open and gregarious as he seems, is also the most close-mouthed person Sam's ever met. He thought being two feet away from him for several hours would net some useful intel, but the man seems allergic to talking about himself.

Oh, he learns some things, useless things. He learns Dean keeps an appalling diet of greasy diner food and gas station snacks. He learns he has impeccable instincts for direction and an encyclopedic knowledge of state and federal highways, as if he'd downloaded the entire corporate library of Rand McNally direct to his brain. He learns he has intricate knowledge of pop culture but doesn't know what Myspace is.

But when Sam tries to ask him personal questions, Dean fobs him off. Inquiries into his past get sidetracked by enthusiastic reminiscences about childhood TV shows. Having been raised primarily in front of discount motel TVs, this repertoire resembles that of someone decades older. Dean is unaccountably delighted when he realizes Sam actually gets most of his references.

When he asks him directly about his family, Dean pretends not to hear the question and changes the subject. The conversation is over before it begins.

–

They stop for gas and lunch outside a town called Kettering, and Sam slips away to make a quick phone call out of earshot.

“Hey,” Jess says. She sounds like she'd walking fast somewhere outside.

He checks his watch. “You on your way to court? You're sitting in on that McCormack case, right?”

“Going back to the office, actually. Something came up and we needed a different file. I'm like one step above an intern, so I got to be the one to play fetch.” He pictures her hoofing it across the Hill armed with coffee and a backpack that would intimidate some long-distance hikers and smiles.

She barely pauses for breath before asking, “So where are you? Back in civilization yet?”

“Well,” Sam says, looking back at where Dean is eyeing the ancient gas meter with the intense focus of one determined to click off at a whole number. “I'm in – Ohio.”

“So the bureau guys still think they have a trail to follow?”

“Not exactly.” How to best explain that he's decided to go on a road trip with his America's Most Wanted brother without Jess thinking he has Stockholm Syndrome?

“Sam.” She sounds like she's stopped walking. “What are you doing?”

“Look,” he says. “I just wanted to call and let you know that I'm going to be gone a little longer than expected.”

She sounds wary, “How long are we talking here?”

“As long as it takes,” he says and means it.

“Sam, what the hell?”

“I promise I'll explain everything when I can,” he says quickly. “It's not a big deal, okay?”

“Just details and window dressing, right?”

He winces. “I just didn't want you to worry.”

“Right,” she says slowly in a tone that tells him he's being completely dense. “I'm totally not going to worry about my best friend, who is chasing his long lost evil brother and is now in Ohio doing something he can't tell me about. Why would I worry?”

Over by the car, Dean has replaced the gas nozzle and is glancing around for him.

“I gotta go,” he says distractedly into the phone. “Good luck in court, love you.”

He hears an explosive sigh as he ends the call and feels a little bad. But he'll make it up to her. He's going monster hunting with a modern day nomad; it'll be a great story to tell over drinks.

–

At lunch, Sam has a salad and two cups of coffee. Dean has a half-pound burger with fried onions and side of crinkle-cut fries. They both cast skeptical looks at the other's plate before turning their attention to the pile of regional newspapers on the table.

“So what criteria do you use when looking for a hunt?” Sam asks, spreading out the previous day's _Dayton Daily News._

“Anything that sounds weird,” Dean says.

Sam flicks his eyes up. “Anything that sounds weird.”

Dean shrugs. “Yeah, you know. Freaky accidents. Unusually gruesome deaths. Ignore what you see on TV -- most murders are pretty boring,” blithely says the man used to killing magical nightmare creatures. “I mean, if you have a couple pints of a dude's blood splattering a wall fifteen feet from where he's standing, the culprit's probably not his pissed off wife.”

Their waitress, who had been approaching with a pitcher of water, pauses fitfully by their table before moving away without refilling their waters. Dean pays no attention and adds reflectively, “Well, unless the pissed off wife's a monster. That happens.”

They turn to their attention to the newspapers. Just as Sam's forking the last bit of sad iceberg lettuce from his plate, Dean makes a triumphant noise and stabs his finger at a block of newsprint.

“Daniel Stevens. Fifty-year-old father of three, found dead in a locked bedroom from _mysterious_ stab wounds. No weapon found on site. No sign of forced entry.” Dean looks up at Sam, supremely satisfied at the sound of this horrible murder.

Sam nods. “So what do you think did it?”

“Maybe a spirit of some kind. We'll need to get into the house to take some EMF readings, dig into the history of the place to see if there's any violent deaths in its past.” Dean looks back at the newspaper. “The funeral's tomorrow morning, we can go then. Everyone should be away.”

Sam shifts in his seat, uneasy at the thought of breaking into a grieving family's house. “Couldn't we just show up at the wake and do it then? Pretend we knew the guy?”

Dean looks surprised. “Well – I guess,” he says after a moment. “But then we'd have to talk to them.”

“So? They might know something useful.” Sam doesn't have too much first-hand experience in murders, but his first step in any investigation would be to interview the people closest to the crime.

A shadow passes over Dean's face, clouding out his contented expression. “I don't talk to the families if I can help it.” He starts folding the newspaper away, face pointed elsewhere.

Sam feels like he is missing something important. He watches Dean for a moment before offering tentatively, “Well, I guess we'll check out the house like you said. And if we don't find anything, we'll go from there?”

Dean nods and flags down the waitress, carefully and completely preoccupied with getting the check.

–

That evening Sam is treated to the Winchester gun show as Dean unloads a small arsenal from a secret compartment in the Impala's trunk and furtively hauls it across the parking lot of the Red Carpet Inn.

He watches as Dean lays out the weapons across his bedspread and spies a couple of his own mixed in with the rest. He repossesses them with not a little challenge in his gaze, but Dean just shrugs like _yeah, that’s fair_ and turns his attention to systematically breaking each gun down to clean.

The mechanical tang of gun oil slowly pervades the room. It seems to have a soporific effect on Dean, and he goes into a meditative repose, capable hands moving deftly over the intricate metal components.

“Do you have permits for any of these?” Sam asks him eventually.

Dean considers the question and offers, “My Colt is registered to a Mike Larson out of Missouri.” He grins. “He is a fine, upstanding man. Pillar of the community.”

“Right,” Sam says. He shouldn't have bothered asking.

It's a quiet night. Dean cleans his guns. Sam does some tentative poking into local obituaries and property records. At some point, dosed with the low murmur of the television and the too-familiar setting of the room, he slips off into sleep.

He's only vaguely aware of the hands lifting his laptop from the bed and coaxing him into lying down. Then he's out completely.

–

The next morning they watch from across the street as a bevy of black-clad bodies empty from the Stevens house and drive away. They climb out of the Impala in simultaneous door creaks and hustle across the road.

Sam stands uncomfortably by as Dean picks the lock on the front door and then they're in.

He is jittery as they sweep the rooms one-by-one, hyper aware of intruding in this apple-pie house that’s been touched and tainted by the strange and gruesome. The sheer normality of the rooms feels almost sinister. Like some manner of evil must be lurking behind the cheerful fruit-themed wall hangings in the kitchen or the plump floral cushions in the living room. Sam doesn’t know if he feels this way out of some latent instinct or if it’s just because  he’s never lived in a house as nice as this one.

He briefly reflects again on how insane this would look from his vantage point just two days ago.

Dean has pulled what looks like a walkman – a tape player again, what is up with that? – out of his jacket pocket and is listening intently.

“EMF meter,” he says when he sees Sam looking. He grins and adds, unnecessarily, “ _Homemade_.”

They've hardly been there five minutes, most of which Sam has spent trying not to look too closely at the wholesome family photos on the living room mantle, when there's a creak from the foyer – the very distinct sound of the front door opening.

Sam and Dean stare at each other.

“Is that – ?”

“Someone came back,” Dean says. “Here, quick.” And before Sam can protest or think of a better plan, he is being bundled backwards into a coat closet. Dean wedges himself in close so he can shut the door.

Sam fidgets in the darkness. There's a hanger digging into the vulnerable spot between his shoulder blades, and Dean is standing on his foot. He looks through the slots of the door above Dean head and manfully withholds a sigh.

“Hey,” Dean whispers. “Just like old times, huh, Sammy?”

Dean is wrong. This is completely different than being trapped in a trunk together. This time they are front-to-front, and Sam is acutely aware that they are related.

He does his best to ignore the feeling of Dean pressed against him from knee to chest and tries to remember the last time he and Victor had sex. Three weeks, maybe four?

So Sam's body is a little pent up. It doesn't care who is rubbing up against it. He could be standing in line at the post office on tax day and have this same reaction.

Dean's breath is warm on his chin. When he turns his head, Sam gets the strong scent of his hair gel.

“We are not having sex in this closet,” he tells Dean before the other man can make a lewd remark.

Dean snorts lightly. “Dude, I'm a professional. I have rules about fucking around on hunts.” He pauses and Sam can hear the smirk grow in his voice. “Interesting to know where _your_ mind's at, though.”

Sam feels himself flush and is thankful for the dark. This is so fucked up.

Dean's EMF meter shrieks, and Dean flinches. He yanks the earbuds out and Sam can hear its wail even with the headphones still jacked in. He hopes whoever came home isn’t listening too hard.

“Well, that answers that question,” he says, inspecting the walkman. It's such a calm non-response to evidence of a ghost that Sam has to stare. “Now let's just hope Casper doesn't decide to put in an appearance while we're stuck in here.”

“What do we do if it does?” Sam asks. Dean already explained to Sam about the salt and iron, but he doesn’t relish the thought of discharging his gun in a grieving family’s house. Sam is beginning to understand how Dean has such a long rap sheet;  the opportunities for misunderstanding seem endless.

Dean meets his eyes and even in the dark Sam can tell he's serious. “We run.”

Thankfully it doesn't come to that. The front door opens and slams closed again and they're able to get out with nary a puff of cold air.

Back in the car, Sam looks expectantly at Dean. “Okay. So there’s definitely something hanging around. Now what?”

“Now comes the worst part.” Dean pulls a slight face and starts the car. “Research.”

\--

Sitting in the local library, surrounded by books and computers, Sam is on more familiar ground. Collecting background information for a case is something he does all the time when assisting the more senior marshals in his office. He’s in his element here.

A few feet away at a nearby table, Dean slams a heavy local plat book shut with an obnoxious sigh and grunts, “I hate this part of the job.”

Sam shakes his head and continues scrolling down the search results. He ignores his brother when he gets up and walks over. Also ignores the creak of his leather coat and the accompanying scent when he hovers close against his back.

“I don’t think the house has anything to do with the murder,” he tells Dean absently.

“Yeah, I got nothing from the property records. Did you find anything on Daniel Stevens?”

“A lot of ties to the community; local business owner, a couple civic recognition awards. His family’s been in the area going back at least three generations. But check this out.” Sam clicks over to the tab he has open, the archived news article that caught his eye even though it was a couple decades old.

Dean’s face makes an appearance over Sam’s shoulder, unsettlingly intimate and close enough for Sam to see the freckles underneath his stubble. Dean scans the page. From the way his expression immediately changes, Sam can tell he is picking up on the same details he had.

Two brothers go on a hunting trip. One comes back. The other dies en route to the hospital from a stab wound.

“Hunting accident, huh,” Dean murmurs.

“Yeah,” Sam says, clicking some more. “Interesting timing, though, because Ron was about to take over the family business.”

A photo from the slightly older community interest piece shows an elderly smiling man framed by his two adult sons in front of a building. The caption reads: _Local legacy keeps Stevens Pipefitting in the family._

Dean sits back, lip curling. “So we’re thinking Daniel offed Ron just so he could run some small time machine shop?”

Sam shrugs and says, “It’s one possibility.”

Dean studies him, openly skeptical. “Hell of a way to treat family. I don’t understand anyone could do something like that.”

Sam says, “Family doesn’t mean the same thing to all people.”

“I get that,” Dean says. “But if you don’t like your family, stop exchanging Christmas cards or  something, you know? Pretend they don’t exist.”

Sam’s jaw goes tight, but he says calmly, “I guess not everyone finds that so neat and easy.”

Dean scoffs, “And what, _murder_ ’s preferable?”

He doesn’t look away from the computer screen. “You’re assuming it was premeditated, which we can’t know.”

“I don’t see much of a difference,” Dean says bluntly. “You’re either capable of killing your own blood or you’re not.”

Sam doesn’t agree. What’s more, he doesn’t like Dean’s self-righteous tone. He’d dearly love to throw Dean’s own track record with family in his face, but it’s not time for that discussion yet. Besides, they need to get this ghost.

Sam changes the subject. “Look, if we’re right about all this, do we even need to salt and burn him? If he was looking for revenge, he’s got it now, right?”

Dean shakes his head. “It doesn’t always work that way. You can’t think about ghosts like they’re -- like they’re a person. They don’t have emotions in the normal way of things. A restless spirit has no way to go except bad. There’s only one way to be sure he won’t hurt anyone else.”

“Okay.” Sam turns his attention back to the obituary. “So where is Ron Stevens buried?”

\--

The last time Sam stepped foot in a cemetery, he was fifteen and sneaking some Halloween beers with two other boys from the home. He hadn’t given the graves much consideration then; in his mind they weren’t really connected to the dead. In the eight years he’d had with his father, he didn’t remember him once ever bringing them to their mother’s grave. She was not in some small town Kansas cemetery. She was right there in the car with the three of them, silent and missed.

So Sam doesn’t have a lot of strong emotions attached to graves as an idea. But it’s still violently _wrong_ to sneak into a cemetery under the cover of darkness and and watch passively as Dean, whistling, swings his spade down from his shoulder and sinks it deep into the neat lawn.

In deference to the early summer warmth, he has thrown his leather jacket haphazardly over the gravestone. It obscures the name but not the epitaph: _1952-1979 Beloved Brother and Friend._

They switch off digging. Sam enjoys the exertion in the way only someone who has driven over one thousand miles in recent memory can, but after half an hour his mind starts to wander. He’s bored and maybe a little disappointed.

Ten minutes later, after they’ve uncovered the coffin, Sam is sailing through the cemetery air like a rag doll. He is no longer disappointed.

He's barely landed on his back when the ghost materializes above him, pale and breathtaking and hefting a blood-stained knife. Ron Stevens. Definitely still restless.

Ron reaches for him and Sam twists to the side, his borrowed sawed-off coming up. He fires and the recoil sends a shock up his arm. It feels amazing.

“Sam!” Dean is over by the open grave.

Sam scrambles to his feet just in time to see Ron appear over his brother, who is hammering his spade down to break through the coffin. He runs forward and shoots with his left arm, reaching down with the right to help Dean climb up.

He stands vigilant as Dean dumps accelerant and salt over the cracked-open wood below, letting off the shotgun each time Ron materializes nearby. An unnatural wind whips at his hair and his ears are ringing faintly.

When the flames leap up, his eyes don't know where to look – at the hypnotic fireburst that consumes Ron Stevens’s body or his brother's ash-smudged maniac grin.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to espionne for the beta and extra diligence with the exact canon events of the SPN Christmas ep!

They arrive back at the motel sore and reeking of smoke. Sam's high on endorphins and waves Dean on to shower first. He's so exhilarated by the hunt that he doesn't even care that much when Dean makes the predictable offer of sharing.

“Hunt’s over,” Dean points out. Sam just rolls his eyes and shakes his head, but he's grinning hard when the door closes behind him.

He tries to imagine what it would have been like to grow up in the life with Dean – to be a well-oiled team, every week a new place with the same fight. To have that birthright sense of _purpose._

He's no stranger to wanting to belong to something bigger than himself. It's a hunger that had him eyeing military recruitment flyers when he was seventeen and flirting with homelessness. The same drive slept through most of undergrad before rearing its head when he met the marshal instructor from Glynco. To think, he could have had it this whole time. The thought should bring the usual sour resentment, but it doesn't. The night's been too good.

Over on the table by the window, Dean's phone lights up with a new message.

Sam looks back at the closed bathroom door.

A small part of him, the one still bright-eyed and breathless from the hunt, says _don't look_. But Sam is nothing if not contemptuous of that naive, trusting little brother in him, the same one that spent years trying to sneak a look at his father's journal. And look where that got him -- getting caught trying to read it one Christmas and angering his brother so much that he left him for life. The reminder has Sam straightening up and marching over before he can think twice.

There are two messages. The first is a string of addresses and dates, which Sam instantly recognizes with a drop in his stomach as places he stayed between the ages of sixteen and eighteen. The second is: _the trail gets weird after this b/c of the emancipation. i think your boy might have changed his name._

He stares down at the damning message, thinking _gameover_. His whole body absorbs the disaster, bristling over with nerves and heat like he’s got a sudden fever. He should feel betrayed right now, but he’s too busy being sick at the thought of how close Dean came to finding out the truth.

Inside the bathroom, the shower cuts off. Sam startles and, with a few swift clicks, decisively deletes the second message.

When Dean opens the bathroom door again a few minutes later, framed in his towel by a damp billow of steam, Sam shoves the phone in his face and demands:

“Why are you digging into my background?”

“Jeez, Sam,” Dean says, unfazed. “We're not even dating yet and you're already snooping into my phone?”

He brushes past him and reaches for his bag. Drops his towel and doesn't even have the decency to turn fully away.

Sam keeps his eyes on Dean's face. “Who is,” he checks the phone again, “ _Dr. Badass_ and why is he looking at my record?”

He does a quick a mental calculation about how long it would take them to trace the name change. The fact that he was still a minor in foster care will make it more difficult, but he knows it’s now only a matter of time before Dean finds out. And then who knew how he’d react? Sam hates the idea that he might not be the one to decide how this all plays out.

Dean pulls on a pair of boxers and turns to him, exasperated. “Relax, dude. It's not as suspicious as it looks.”

Even as his thoughts are spiraling in a panicked frenzy, his mouth keeps up the act of the outraged stranger. “Really? Because it looks like you're either trying to steal my identity or dig up blackmail material.”

Dean looks intrigued. “You got something worth blackmailing?”

Sam wants to pull his hair out. “ _Dean_.”

He throws his arms out. “I just wanted to learn a little more about you, Sam. That's all.”

Sam can feel his face arranging itself appropriately, skepticism pulling at his eyebrows and mouth. “Really.”

“Yeah.”

“Ever think about asking, like a normal person? Quicker than hacking into secure government databases, I promise.”

Dean actually laughs at that, sudden and surprising. “Dude. I _have_ asked. I know hunters who've lost their tongues who say more than you do.”

He shifts on his feet at that, thrown back into a sincere reaction. “What are you talking about?”

Dean presses the advantage, walking forward until he's planted himself squarely in front of him, close enough for Sam to track his eyes as they flicker down to his mouth and back up. “Yesterday I asked where you grew up and you said, direct quote, _around_.”

Sam narrows his eyes. He hadn't lied.

“And when I asked if you had any family,” Dean continues, watching him closely. “You pretended to fall asleep against the window.”

Sam refuses to back up or act like he's been caught-out. He analyzes the other man's expression; Dean is clear-eyed and faintly frustrated, but there is no suspicion lingering in his face. Sam might be still be able to control the situation.

Dean still hasn't put on a shirt.

“Look, I swear I'm not asking for the key to your little princess diary here,” Dean says with a faint smile. “I just wanna know the basics.”

He reaches a decision then and nods. Maybe it was always going to come out like this, on some random night with Dean stepping unawares into the shadow of their past. Sam still has the advantage; he knows the secret lurking in that darkness.

“How about we trade off, then.” His pulse is kicking up a fuss, the same part of him that enjoyed tussling with a ghost now clamoring to the forefront, eager to see some blood spill. “You ask me a question, then it's my turn.”

Dean clearly senses that something is going on at a deeper level than he knows, and he hesitates a moment before nodding.

The boisterous, triumphant mood from before has broken. They're both silent as Dean pulls on the rest of his clothes and settles down backwards over a chair by the window. Sam stays on his feet. His hands are sweating. Dread rivals desire for what’s to come.

Dean seems at a loss for where to start. “Okay, so. Where'd you grow up?”

“I wasn't lying,” Sam tells him. “I grew up kind of all over. Nebraska for a long while. But also Iowa, Wisconsin, Colorado, couple other states for shorter periods.”

Dean nods and Sam watches him for a moment, wondering if he’s thinking about his own childhood on the road and comparing it to Sam’s.

“My turn.” He wastes no time. “Where's John Winchester?”

Dean's whole body tightens as if his spine’s on a winch and he’s too late in catching the way his head recoils back a little. He stares over at Sam with an unfathomable gaze.

“You still playing the lawman, Sam?” he asks quietly.

Sam just waits silently for an answer, and the look Dean gives him now is guarded, friendliness dampened like a flashlight on low batteries.

“He's dead,” he eventually bites out. He crosses his arms and works his jaw.

Sam gives in to the impulse to pace, if only so he has an excuse to look somewhere else for a few moments. He's suspected it since he first went through Dean's file, but the confirmation is still a subtle blow. Something slow-growing he suspects will feel like a bad bruise later.

“So,” Dean says after a moment, his voice a closer approximation to normal. “Family?”

Sam twitches off the question. “You already know I grew up in the system.”

“Words on a school transcript, man,” Dean says. “I wanna know it from you. Besides, growing up in the system don't mean you don't have family.”

It was good to know, Sam thought, that he'd had to dig up his record, that Sam didn't scream _foster kid_ to anyone who looked at him. He used to feel like it was stamped across his forehead, especially during those first few years at Stanford. Still, that question, coming from Dean? It stung Sam on multiple levels.

Clearly he didn't have _brother_ stamped on him either.

Sam looks hard at him. “It's not my fault your little investigation already spoiled the answers. You'll have to be more specific in the wording of your question next time.”

Dean looks irritated at that response. “What are you, a fucking genie?”

But Sam's already moving forward, voice cutting and harder than he'd have chosen had he been in a mood to regulate it.

“How about you, Dean?” He asks. “Your father's dead. Your mother died in a car crash. Got any other family? ”

Dean goes subtly still. He looks at Sam like he just turned into a snake.

“What?” Sam says after a moment, impatient. “What is it?” Is this it? Did he somehow tip his hand, is Dean going to finally realize –

“My mom didn't die in a car crash,” Dean says slowly.

It's so unexpected, Sam stops pacing.

Even with all the other secrets his father and brother had obviously kept when he was a kid, it had never once occurred to him to question his mother's death. Why would he? It was one of the most defining facts of his life, as fundamental as his abandonment.

“Why would you think that?” Dean asks, eyes narrowed. Sam just looks at him, momentarily at a loss.

“I – it was in your file,” Sam begins, faltering, but Dean cuts him off almost immediately.

“No. It wasn't.” Dean climbs off the chair and advances. His movement is suddenly more hostile, more predatory, than it's ever been before. “Here's my next question, Sam. How do you feel about _Christo_?”

“I don't – ” Sam's completely off-kilter now. “Did you say _Christo?_ What is that, Latin?”

Dean lets out a long breath and then just stares at him, eyes narrowed unpleasantly.

Sam gets the distinct feeling that he was just tested for something and failed. Dean's looking at him like he's the enemy, which he's never done before, not even back when Sam was pointing a gun at him outside the prison in Florida.

Out of options, knowing he's probably screwed himself, he plays his last card. Because, more than anything, he just needs to fucking _know_.

“What happened to your brother?”

Dean's whole body spooks; he rears back, the whites of his eyes showing.

“How do you even know about him?” He asks hoarsely.

 _Him_.

It's the first acknowledgement Sam – _Sam the little brother_ – has gotten, no matter how attenuated, and it runs through his body like a taser.

Sam doesn't have any answer better than the one he gave about their mother, so he just shrugs tensely and tries to communicate that with his expression. He watches Dean closely, a little desperate, watches him run a hand over his mouth, watches him bow his head and turn away as if to protect himself.

It's still a surprise when Dean speaks, voice quiet and stripped down – but not as much of a surprise as what he says. Face directed at the wall, voice like crushed glass, he tells him:

“Sammy died.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to espionne for betaing this Very Important Chapter!

When Sam was ten years old and still dreaming dreams filled with the roar of the highway and Jimmy Page guitar solos, his foster home went up in flames.

“It was a fire,” Dean says.

His memory of the night is mostly a blur, but a few details stand out. It’s as if his brain, in its kaleidoscope of terror and confusion, could only capture a scattering of moments clearly.

He remembers waking up to the screams of Mrs. Hinchey. Remembers stumbling out into the hallway to see the flames leaping out of her six-month-old daughter’s nursery. Remembers the man who caught him by the shoulders and whispered into his ear _run along now_ , the words hot and reeking of rotten eggs.

Dean’s voice staggers from word to word like it’s been shot. “Same thing that got my mom, it came back.”

Later, he thought he must have imagined the man, plucked him from the nightmare he’d been having just minutes before. He didn’t mention him to anyone, not to the other foster kid who made it out, whose name and face he can no longer recall, nor to any of the dozen milling police and firefighters.

He’d liked Mrs. Hinchey; she was kind to Sam in her own no-nonsense way. He hadn’t minded staying with her while waiting for his dad to come get him.

“My dad, he’d been looking for – ” the words cut off. Finally Dean just says, “We were just days from finding him again when he saw the report.”

The corner of Sam’s mind that made him become a marshal is turning the new facts this-way-and-that, assessing them with a clinical eye. Mrs. Hinchey had died in a supernatural arson; arson similar to the one that killed his mother; his mother who hadn't died in a car crash.

He distantly notes that he is the common element in both incidents.  That probably means something. Something bad.

But none of that matters right now, because he is too busy staring at his brother – his brother who is so obviously full of grief even years after the fact, he can barely speak about it.

Dean is standing ten feet away from him, jaw clenched and face averted from Sam like he’s confessing a sin. He looks absolutely nothing like the carefree and cheerful man Sam has seen before now.

The time since the first moment Sam saw Dean's full name on the computer screen seems to evaporate, and Sam's left reeling from the discovery all over again. Dean, who used to make him dinner every night and let him hog the covers and would sometimes give him snakebites and laugh until he was crying –

His _brother_ is right in front of him.

“What if,” he begins but then stops. When he’d pictured the moment he told Dean the truth, he’d imagined himself victorious, his brother brought low – but not like this. Never like this. He feels lost; how does one even begin to explain?

Sam takes a deep breath. “What if he didn't die?”

Dean lifts his head to blink uncomprehendingly at him.

Sam's hands twist nervously together. He can't look away. “What if I told you that there had, had been some kind of mix up, that he was alive and – and just grew up in the system?”

Dean's expression sharpens in understanding and takes on a hint of anger. His voice is worse than hoarse when he snarls, “I don't know what you're trying to do, but it isn't _fucking_ – ”

“ _Dean_ ,” he says, voice hitching. The name feels different on his tongue as he allows himself to finally say it as a brother and not a stranger. So he says it again, just 'cause. “Dean. I waited _years_ for you and Dad to find me.”

Dean stares in naked shock.

Sam continues desperately, “And – and when you didn't, I just. I don't know, I thought you didn't want me.”

Dean steps up close, close enough for Sam's hair to stand on end. And he can't say anything, because Dean is staring intently, gaze clearly tracing his features – his eyes, his nose. It lands on the mole on his cheek and sticks.

“My brother didn't have any facial marks,” he says, offhanded. Distracted.

“I – spent a lot of time outside for a couple years,” Sam says, off guard. Of all the things to say after reuniting with his brother, that was not even close to being on the list. “And more importantly, why would I _lie_ about this, you jerk?”

Something about his tone seems to set Dean back on his heels. He looks up at Sam, wide-eyed. Swallows hard. And then he –

He _smiles_.

Sam thought he'd seen Dean smile before, but all those times were nothing compared to this. It's an unbelievable smile – sudden, huge. Utterly blinding.

Dean barks out a laugh and, before Sam can so much as blink, he's got him around the shoulders and is hauling him in for a hug.

Sam can feel the other man’s chest vibrating with the laughter and his heart beating madly underneath. The arms around him are tight, almost painfully so, and unlike previous times they've been this close, there isn't a hint of a come-on in the grip. It's the hug of a brother.

It's a hug you give _family_.

Sam swallows painfully around the abrupt tightness in his throat and bites his cheek to contain himself. He lifts his arms and hugs back just as hard.

“You're not responding how I thought you would,” Sam says over his brother's shoulder after a while. His voice comes out a little unsteady.

Dean draws back a few inches but keeps a hold of Sam's biceps. He's flushed, eyes bright, electric.

“What are you talking about?”

Sam furrows his brow. Maybe Dean has been knocked around too often by monsters. Maybe he has _brain damage_.

“Uh, the whole – kissing thing.” He decides not to mention the less PG stuff; they're still holding on to each other. It would be weird.

A look of _oh, that_ comes over Dean's face, but he doesn't spring back out of Sam's arms or look even a little awkward. Sam briefly flashes to himself the morning after the prison break, retching into the toilet, pacing agitatedly around his apartment, and feels like the world is a fundamentally unfair place.

To prove his point further, Dean just shrugs. “That doesn't matter.”

“Doesn't matter?” he repeats, incredulous.

“Sam, you're _alive_. You're all grown up,” Dean says and his grip on Sam's arms tighten. Something like sorrow flashes across his face, brief enough for Sam to wonder if he’s just seeing what he wants. “You’re healthy and smart, and – and fuckin' huge. How the hell am I supposed to care about anything else?” He smiles again and says simply, “My brother's alive.”

“Oh,” Sam says quietly.

He finds he has to look away from Dean's eyes, which are large and maybe even shining a bit and really, he doesn't remember twelve-year-old Dean being this emotionally transparent. Perception issues, fuck. He's the unreliable narrator of his own damn life.

Dean coughs lightly and claps him – twice – on the shoulders before finally letting go. His hands slide down his arms, like he's reluctant to stop touching him.

Sam drops his own arms and steps back.

They both fidget and steal glances. Dean rubs the back of his neck and chews his mouth; Sam shuffles his feet and rolls his shoulders.

“Wanna get drunk?” Dean asks finally.

“ _Yes_ ,” Sam says, grateful.

–

It’s late enough that their only option is cheap beer from the shabby convenience store down the street. They stand close together under the florescent lights and argue like it really matters whether they drink PBR or MGD. Budweiser is disregarded almost immediately, not because there was any distinguishable difference – they’re all shit – but because they’d both had their first beer before they’d finished losing their baby teeth and habits created that early tend to stick. They grin kind of stupidly at each other over the remembered shared preference.

Back in the motel with their bounty, they set themselves to their task with diligence, downing cans in races and tossing them into a crumpled nest of aluminum in the corner. They trade stories from their childhood  – not the one they had apart, not yet, but the one they shared.

A lot of it is Dean recalling things first, dredging up memories Sam had half-forgotten and wiping them clean again. He finds himself remembering a camping trip in the Mojave where the three of them subsisted on baked beans and laid out under the stars until long past their bedtime, Sam warm and sleepy where he was sandwiched between his brother and father.   

When they're too drunk to do much else, they flip on the TV and watch M.A.S.H. reruns while playing poker. Sam finds it a little hard to keep the cards in focus. Dean laughs and calls him a lightweight, an insult that would have had more of an impact if he hadn't slurred his words together.

It's only when it's very late and the drunk is wearing off and settling in to abject lethargy that Sam finally asks about that night back in 1991.

The TV's been switched off for a while and they're both sitting up against the headboard of the bed nearest the bathroom. Well. Dean's sitting up. Sam's spent the past ten minutes in an inexorable downward slide and has his head smashed up against Dean's upper arm.

Dean's voice is gravelly with embarrassment. “I, uh. I got picked up by the cops. This dick caught me trying to take some of the presents under his tree and wouldn't let me go until they showed up.”

Sam's too comfortable to do much more than twitch and say, disbelieving, “You were stealing someone's Christmas presents? Who does that?”

“Hey, I was twelve, okay? It didn't look like Dad was going to make it home, and I, I didn't know what to do.” An unsteady hand drifts up and buries itself in Sam's hair. It feels nice, and Sam maybe presses into it a little. “You were really unhappy. So I did something stupid.”

The words are sitting there, waiting for Sam to say them: _I didn't need presents, I just needed you_. But even drunk he doesn't say them. Instead he struggles up onto his right elbow, never mind Dean's protesting hand trying to pull him back down, and lifts the amulet over his head.

He presses it to Dean's chest. “Here. Take this.”

Dean's hand is slow to reach up for it, he's so taken aback. “What, why?”

“I had it that night,” Sam says. “It was going to be a present for – for Dad. I want you to have it.”

Dean starts to shake his head. “Sam, I can't – ”

“I want you to have it,” Sam repeats firmly. He can't verbalize all his reasons, but having his neck free of the weight of the amulet feels _right_ , like he's shrugging off all the years of resentment and anger, like he's freeing them both from something. “Please, Dean.”

Dean looks at Sam closely as if to gauge his sincerity before silently relenting. He studies the amulet for a long moment and then ducks his head and pulls it over. It settles down in the middle of his chest and Sam half-smiles tiredly at the sight.

This time when Dean's hand pulls his head back down again, he submits to it easily.

–

When Sam wakes up the next morning, he’s sweaty, apocalyptically hungover, and needs to piss very badly.

He's still in his clothes from the day before, having only removed his over shirt at some point in the night. He's sprawled out perpendicular on the bed, ankles and feet hanging over the edge. His face is pillowed on his brother's stomach.

He half-whimpers, half-groans from the pain in his head, and opens his eyes muzzily.

Dean's morning wood greets him from under a pair of boxers a few inches away. It's long, perky, and curves a little to the left. Sam stares dumbly.

It would be so easy to close those few inches and mouth over the cloth-covered head. Feel it jump and twitch under his lips as the thin fabric grows damp and molds to its exact girth. Hands would come up and bury themselves into his hair again, hold him there.

His mouth waters and his nostrils flare; there's that distinctive smell of slick waiting to well up and make a mess of the boxers. Make a mess of him.

Sam, careful not to disturb his snoring, comatose brother, crawls backwards off the bed, gets to his feet, and goes into the bathroom. He shuts the door quietly behind him.

Then he freaks the fuck out.

 


	16. Chapter 16

**Interlude III**

 

It's past eleven at night, and Victor is sitting in front of his laptop in a borrowed cubicle at the Pittsburgh field office.

Even at such a late hour, there are still at least a dozen people milling around the floor. It's a marker of the kind of determination, hard work, and commitment that characterizes the bureau. Most days, good days, it makes him feel like he picked the best damn career in the world. Others, he wants to quit and move somewhere quiet to open a bar, the type that has grouchy old clientele and scarred oak counters.

Eventually he closes the laptop with a sigh and scrubs a hand over his face. When he catches Dean Winchester again, he's going to recommend him for supermax. Victor put in nine months hunting Winchester down and putting him in Glades the first time around. This whole chase is starting to feel like a personal failure. Victor doesn’t like losing.

“Henriksen.” Groves stops by the cubicle, his suit jacket thrown over his arm and briefcase in hand. “I'm heading back to the hotel. You staying here?”

He is tempted to wave him on, reluctant to admit that he's worked himself into a dead end. But, honestly? He's too damn tired.

“I think I might join you. I got nothing.”

Groves's eyes sharpen slightly. “You think Winchester flew the coop?”

Victor grunts as he pulls on his own suit jacket. “I'm not convinced he was here to begin with. We've had some erratic action on that card in the past. I've told you before – I think he has a partner.”

Groves hums, considering, as Victor packs up his laptop. They walk out of the building into the dark street and head for the bureau SUV parked a block up.

“So where's that friend of yours,” Groves asks casually as they buckle in. “The marshal kid, what was his name?”

“Sam Wesson.” Victor has a strange tension in his gut when he thinks of Sam. Something's going on there. His body knows it, and it's just up to his head to figure out what. “I think he dropped out and is heading back home. The abduction really shook him up.”

Truth is, he doesn’t really believe his own words; he knows Sam’s tougher than that and stubborn to boot. It’s what had first attracted him, the idea of having a partner who would understand that the job comes first. Sam doesn’t care about the long hours and minimal time-off; he doesn’t need people around all the time to be satisfied.

However, Victor is less fond of these traits when he’s on the receiving end. Sam hasn’t told him where he is, and he doesn’t like it. He’d call and ask Jessica Moore if she's heard from him, but every conversation he has with that woman seems to end with her making pointed comments about extrajudicial surveillance and law enforcement overreach, like Victor single-handedly wrote and enforced the Patriot Act. If he’d wanted to be lectured by idealistic grad students, he’d have stayed on as an instructor at Quantico, thanks.

Groves snorts lightly, a senior agent's cavalier attitude to personal trauma. “You'd think it would motivate him to get the man responsible. Maybe your friend should consider a different career path.”

There are a lot of explanations Victor could give. Sam is young, he’s a rookie. Sam is a marshal and not as inured to the bureau's heavy guiding hand.

To be honest, if he found out Sam was still out there looking for Winchester on his own, he wouldn't be surprised. The man has issues with teamwork and authority; Victor didn’t think Sam had been impressed with his brief brush with the task force in Morgantown. He’d been fidgety and impatient the whole time. Distracted.

He doesn’t mention any of this to Groves.

Groves doesn't let his non-response deter him. He drives attentively through the late night downtown traffic of Pittsburgh and says casually, “It's strange, though. When I put in the report for the operation in Morgantown yesterday, there was a slight complication on the Marshals' end. Wesson, it seems, hasn't notified his superiors about what he’s doing. As far as they knew, he’s off on a beach somewhere.”

Victor cuts his eyes over. “He'd hardly be the first person in law enforcement to take their work home with them.”

“Sure, sure.” Groves shrugs. “It just made me wonder – if Wesson is so gung ho about this that he’s using his paltry first year vacation time, why isn't he up here with us now?”

“Sir,” Victor looks over at his boss with a raised eyebrow. “are you suggesting that the _rookie marshal_ has a lead we don't?”

A flash of irritation crosses Groves’s face, but when he speaks his voice is indifferent. “No, of course not. Forget the kid, it doesn’t matter.”

They lapse back into silence. That tension in Victor’s stomach has redoubled, and he'd swear on his mother's grave he is missing something. Something big.

Ten minutes later they pull into the parking lot of the Best Western. Victor’s ready to call it a night and go up the room he’s sharing with Carlson, another agent on the task force, but Groves is apparently not quite done with him yet.  

“I’ve been thinking,” Groves says as they climb out of the vehicle. “We should look over Winchester’s file again, see if we missed something.”

Victor bites back his instinctive response, which is that he’s been on the Winchester case for almost a year. He could practically write the man’s biography. Instead he says, “And what do you want us to look for?”

“Well, you said you thought Winchester had an accomplice,” Groves says. “Didn’t he have a brother?”

“Died in a house fire,” Victor says dismissively. “Over ten years ago.”

Groves reaches into the back for his bag and jacket. When he turns back to Victor, the parking lot’s overhead light catches his eyes at some strange angle, momentarily making them look black.

Victor rubs his own eyes and shakes his head; he has _got_ to get some sleep.

“You know, a lot of older files got messed up with the switch to digital.” Groves shrugs and, with the sly smile of a superior who gets to offload such tedious work, says, “Why don’t you check again.”


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My gratitude to espionne for the beta and story discussion!

**Part V**

 

By the time Dean wakes up, Sam has showered and fetched two coffees. He manages to drink half of his before he has to go back into the bathroom to throw it up; his body’s never been very good with hangovers.

Dean stirs awake about an hour later, hair tufted up like a hedgehog and face scrunched in slight confusion until his eyes alight on Sam over at the table. His expression immediately evens out, and he makes a faint noise of pleasure. Sam figures getting him coffee was the right move.

He stands up and hands Dean the second cup, carefully not looking at his lap or his strong thighs as he throws off the sheet Sam had covered him up with earlier. Dean accepts the cup but doesn't drink it for a moment, too busy scratching his stubble and smiling muzzily up at him.

Sam turns away and goes back to the table, where he has his laptop and a newspaper spread out over the surface. “I think I found us another case.’

“What?” Dean gestures vaguely with his coffee, looking confused. “We just finished one yesterday.”

When he just shrugs, Dean rolls his eyes and mutters into his upraised cup, “Shoulda known you'd be a workaholic with this.”

Despite his words, though, he looks pleased, like Sam's restless search for distraction was somehow a good sign. He finishes his coffee and shuffles off to the bathroom. He doesn't close the door all the way, even when the shower starts up.

Sam stares hard at his laptop and ignores the soft _whumph_ of clothing dropping to the linoleum.

–

When Sam had been staving off hyperventilation in the bathroom that morning, he'd comforted himself with the thought that he wouldn’t have to deal with Dean touching him all the time, now that he knew they were brothers. He'd been operating under the assumption that Dean was, monster-hunting aside, fundamentally normal.

It just goes to show that even Sam can sometimes be a complete fucking idiot.

If anything, Dean seems to touch him even more often than before, like his few pretenses at propriety or personal space could now be dispensed with in the name of brotherly bonding.

Any excuse will do. He claps him on the shoulder in passing. Before check out, he squeezes in next to him in the bathroom – motel bathrooms, not known for roominess! – to brush his teeth instead of waiting his turn like a civilized human being. When Sam leans against the car while pumping gas, Dean props himself up close, never mind the extra feet of gleaming steel to his right.

You'd think they were driving a tiny Geo Metro, the way Dean positions himself. Sam notices the looks they get from a few people in the parking lot and flushes. He thinks Dean’s oblivious to the looks until he slaps Sam on the ass on his way into the gas station and asks laughingly over his shoulder, “Need anything, _honey_?”

He starts to count himself lucky when Dean still sits on the opposite side of the diner booth at breakfast.

“So tell me about this case,” Dean says after they’ve ordered. He’s settled comfortably into the booth, arm thrown over the back and knees planted firmly apart.

Sam shuffles his feet so Dean’s are no longer bracketing them and clears his throat. He swivels his laptop around so Dean can see the two articles he’s arranged side-by-side.

“There’s been three murders in two weeks in Kansas City. The police haven’t made any connection between them, but every detail is the same – same neighborhood, same wound profile. The victims were beaten and tortured. Two died, the other’s in critical condition and not expected to make it.”

But Dean doesn’t so much as glance at the laptop, gaze resting on Sam’s face. He quirks an eyebrow and prods, “And? What makes you think this is our kinda thing?”

The sound of _our_ on Dean’s tongue sounds wrong to Sam’s fact-sensitive ears, but it makes him feel absurdly warm nonetheless. He grabs the laptop again, since Dean seems determined to ignore it, and says, “The police arrested three different people, a woman and two men. No known connection between them. All three insist they weren’t anywhere near home when the murders occurred.” He waits a beat before delivering the punchline. “Video surveillance has turned up showing the woman in two different places at once.”

Interest kindles in Dean’s eyes. “Ah.”

“Yeah.”

“That does sound like our kinda thing.”

Sam shrugs. “You tell me.”

And Dean does. Sam sits riveted over his cooling breakfast as his brother recites lore about thought forms and shapeshifters, as practiced and analytical as any of his Stanford professors giving a lecture.

\--

Kansas City is easily an eight-hour drive, so Sam settles into the passenger seat of the Impala. He tries not to think about how he seems to be sending himself further and further away from his normal life with every passing day.

Dean climbs into the driver’s seat, head turned down and focused on laboriously typing out a text message.

“Okay,” he says when he’s done, tossing the phone carelessly over his shoulder into the backseat. “Benny’s gonna meet us there.”

Sam tenses. “Benny. Why? You think we’re going to need help with the hunt?”

“Eh, it’s probably nothing I can’t handle.” He starts the car up and checks his mirrors. “No, I told him to come because I want you to meet him.”

Sam furrows his brow. “Uh, Dean? I have met him. He practically decapitated a man in front of me. With his _teeth_. He’s kind of hard to forget.”

Dean shrugs and says, “Yeah, but we didn’t know we were brothers then.”

Sam doesn’t bother correcting him; if Dean wants to ignore the fact that Sam had kept the truth from him for a while there, he wasn’t going to force the issue. But he’s a little dubious at Dean’s apparent belief that everything between Benny and him is going to be apple pie and roses, simply because he’s Dean’s little brother.

They drive out. Sam rolls down his window, getting some fresh air against his face, which still feels tight and hot under his lingering hangover.

Highway driving can be many things: soporific or meditative, boring as all hell or liberating, like that first breath one takes after being underwater for a long time. Sam’s felt them all before and he’ll feel them all again. When he was younger and still viewing the world from the backseat, he often felt like the Impala existed outside of time or space. The only constant, then and now, is how some thoughts refuse to be outrun or left behind on a long drive.

There’s still an unanswered email from Victor sitting in his inbox and a conspicuous absence of new texts from Jess. Sam knows the former is more pressing, given Victor’s current assignment, but it’s the latter that’s got him feeling out-of-sorts and worried.

“She certainly keeps close tabs on you, huh?”

“What?” Sam looks up to find Dean looking back at him, eyebrows slightly raised.

He nods to the phone in Sam’s hand, which Sam hadn’t even realized he’d been staring at. “That friend of yours. You guys talk every day?”

Sam slides the phone back into his pocket and shifts in his seat. The impulse to evade is still there, even though he no longer has to. He never was much good at sharing his thoughts and feelings, but he wants to try now, for his brother.

“I just don’t want her to worry,” he says. When Dean just looks nonplussed, he clarifies, “I was kind of worked up when I left town.”

Dean grins immediately and bounces his eyebrows, “ _Yeah_ , you were. Sammy on the prowl, what a sight that was.”

Sam pauses for a moment before determinedly ignoring the comment.

“Anyway,” he says. “She’s the only person who ever gave a crap about me, she’s kinda all I got.” He realizes too late that he spoke in the present tense when Dean tenses up, grin fading. “I mean – before, you know. You.”

Dean just nods, face somber, and Sam thinks maybe he should just stick to the prevaricating after all. “So what about you, do you have anyone? Beside Benny and that Garth guy, I mean.”

Dean makes a face at the mention of Garth. “Well, there’s always Pastor Jim and Bobby Singer. You remember them?”

Their houses had been two of the only places they ever stayed in more than once. Jim’s place was austere and spotless, full of church paraphernalia and not much else, whereas Bobby’s was a maze of towering dusty books and half-empty whiskey bottles. Looking back as an adult, he thinks they both should have been alien and off-putting to a young child, but all he remembers is the overwhelming sense of safety and comfort.

When Sam nods in response, Dean continues, “We’ll have to swing by their places one of these days. Share the good news.”

Sam doesn’t really have any adults figures from his past that he would choose to stay in touch with; the prospect is strange but appealing.

“How about non-hunters? Know any of those?” He’s not really expecting a good answer, but what Dean says next is still so much worse than he could have imagined.

“Dad pulled me out of school after – you know. You.” His expression, trained forward on the road, is perfectly indifferent. “There was never much need to stick around too long in one place after that.”

Sam gapes at him. “You – wait. Dean, are you telling me you didn’t even finish the ninth grade?”

“Well, we bought a couple home school books and stuff.” Dean glances over at him and clues into his reaction. Defensiveness creeps into his tone. “Hey, I know everything I need to get the job done. What does it matter if I can’t recite the table of elements or whatever the fuck?”

Sam doesn’t know what to say to that, how to feel about that, so he figures he should probably just drop it. And yet he finds himself saying quietly, “It sounds like you were pretty isolated, man.”

Dean shakes his head dismissively. “I have plenty of friends who know the score. All civilians are good for is saving or scamming. You can’t exactly tell them the truth of what’s out there, so that’s just how it is.”

 _Civilians_ , Sam mouths to himself. Jesus. He wants to remind Dean that once upon a time he was the one being kept in the dark and it hadn’t exactly gone well, but there didn’t seem to be much point.

Dean, Sam is slowly beginning to realize, is very poorly socialized. He’s like a rangy alley cat, slinking through the shadows of society and occasionally making one hell of a ruckus amongst the trash cans.

Oh, he seems to do all right when he needs to charm or trick someone. He dons personas clearly pulled from one of the many smirking television personalities he grew up watching, and it usually gets the job done. But put him in a situation where he has to make small talk with a stranger and he retreats into a horrifyingly transparent mixture of boredom and distaste. He swears colorfully in public, even in front of small children, and remains oblivious to nasty looks their parents throw at him in response. And perhaps most tellingly, he keeps _hitting_ on Sam like it’s second nature and then laughing it off, like incest is funny and not stomach-churningly wrong in all fifty states.

All at once he’s astounded by the circumstances of his current reality: sitting in a mobile armory next to an amoral drifter who happens to be his brother and whose best friend is a vampire.

It’s the truth but it’s also impossible to disentangle from the reality of the outer world -- the reality of Victor, still searching for Dean, or Jess, sitting unawares back East. He sinks down in his seat and returns to trying to think of a way to explain it all, to both them and to himself.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to espionne for the beta and invaluable notes on Benny!
> 
> It's unlikely that I'll get another chapter up before the new year, what with travel/holidays/work, so I just want to thank everyone for their patience. Also -- happy holidays! Let's hope 2016 is better than this tire fire of a year has been.

On the outskirts of Kansas City, a marshal, a hunter, and a vampire walk into a bar.

They get a booth near the back of the room, well away from the grainy light pouring in from the front windows. Sam and Benny sit opposite each other; after hesitating a scant few seconds, Dean slides in next to Sam, shoulder bumping up against his own like he doesn't know how to judge distances.

Dean grins across the table at Benny. “Looks like your trip to Pittsburgh paid off. No feds on my trail.”

“Isn't there?” Benny looks at Sam.

Sam doesn't react. He's too busy trying to parse the image of the man before him now with the monster he saw back in West Virginia.

“Don't be like that,” Dean says easily. He throws a brotherly arm around Sam's shoulders, as if Sam wasn't the taller one by several inches. “Sam here is practically a hunter now. He's not a fed anymore.”

Sam's heart lurches in surprise. He tears his gaze away from the vampire and stares at Dean, who doesn't seem to notice his consternation. But Benny does, if the way his lips thin and eyes narrow are any indication.

 _He's not a fed anymore_. The words sit solidly in Sam's gut, heavy like the arm along the back of his neck that's making him duck his head a little. They haven't talked about the future at all beyond doing a hunt or two. Sam's been avoiding thinking about it; Dean has clearly come to his own conclusions.

Sam could bring it up now, but it's not something he's eager to discuss in Benny's somewhat hostile presence. And looking at Dean's contented expression, he thinks it won't be an easy conversation.

Sam can't just drop everything and disappear from his life, hit the road and become a hunter for real. Can he?

Benny's gaze burns into him.

Dean keeps the conversation going all through ordering drinks and burgers. He takes his arm away in order to gesture with it, but his knee slides over in its place, locking in against Sam's like it belongs there. Sam stares down at the tabletop, eyes tracing the faint streaks left behind by a washcloth.

Eventually Dean leaves them alone to use the restroom. As soon as he's disappeared around the corner, Benny's leaning forward into Sam's airspace.

“You're still hiding something. I can smell it.”

“Can you,” Sam says evenly. “And what does that smell like, exactly?”

A hint of teeth masquerade as a smile. “You might as well ask me to explain the color of the sky to a blind man.”

“Right.” Sam would roll his eyes, but he trained himself out of that impulse years ago. A lot of foster parents didn't take too kindly to a kid who was smarter than them and knew it. “I'm not hiding anything. Nothing important.”

Benny clearly doesn't believe him. “Dean doesn’t need any more hurt in his life, especially from you.”

“He's my brother.” The word hangs surreal in the air. He's barely used to thinking it, let alone letting it out into the world alone like that.

“Exactly. Didn't exactly seem to matter much when you were hunting him down.”

Sam narrows his eyes. “We had some misunderstandings to clear up.”

“In my experience, what family often is and what it should be couldn’t be farther apart. It was with mine.” Benny’s flick curiously over Sam’s face. “And I think it definitely is with Dean’s.”

With a drop in his stomach, Sam thinks of the heat he can’t seem to shake whenever he’s near Dean. The way, just that morning at the new motel, Dean tried to pull him down into a headlock and Sam had to resist the urge to follow the momentum, tuck his face into Dean’s stomach, and tackle him to the bed. Instead he shrugged out of it, awkward and flushed. That’s how it is now; Dean tries to touch him like a brother, but Sam’s body stubbornly reacts like a stranger.  

Benny tilts his head a little, and his nostrils flare, scenting.

Sam's shoulders tighten and he shifts in his seat. His mind flashes on all the feelings he's been trying to salt and burn, that sick, twisted shit –

“Food still hasn't come?” Dean reappears and eyes the table with a disappointed look. He thumps down at Sam's side again. “I'm fucking starving, how long we been waiting anyway?”

“Dean,” Sam hears himself say, “Could you move, I need to hit the head.”

Safely alone in the restroom, Sam splashes some water on his face and rakes cool, wet fingers up through his hair, away from his forehead. He looks at himself in the mirror and wonders when he became like this, if he'd always had it in him or if it was the separation that did it.

It was one thing to have his family stolen away – he hadn't thought it could get worse than that. But it's like that night back in 1991 just keeps taking and taking. He surely would never feel this way if he'd grown up alongside Dean.

He shoves the feelings down and straightens up, drying his hands with brisk, economical movements. He can get past this. He has to. He'll do this hunt with Dean and prove it.

On his way back to the booth, some unnamed impulse has him pausing before rounding the corner. He steps in close to the wall and angles his head to listen.

“...think you worry too much,” Dean is saying.

“Someone has to worry about you, since your father seems to have taught you right out of it.”

“ _Benny_ ,” Dean's voice goes dangerously quiet. He doesn't say anything else and after a moment the vampire sighs.

“Don't talk about your father, right.”

“Damn straight.”

“So I can't warn you about Sam and I can't say anything about John. You sensing a pattern here, Dean?”

“Yeah, you seem real eager to talk shit about my family.”

“Or that you have a blind spot a mile wide. Someday something bad's gonna drive right through it and _kill_ you. Remember Lincoln? Or what about Sheboygan? You told me it took you six months to recover from that hunt and John stuck around for, what, two weeks?”

“You know, I didn’t tell you about that just so you could throw it back in my face.”

Silence for a long moment and then Benny says, “Brother, I'm just trying to look out for you.”

Sam really doesn't like that word coming out of that mouth. His hands ball themselves into fists and his jaw twinges from the force of grinding his teeth.

“I appreciate that,” Dean says, voice lighter. “I do. Buddy, I get that your cold, dead heart's in the right place. But I'm telling you that you're reading this all wrong.”

“Am I? It's been only a few days and already you're walking around like you've forgotten how to stand on two legs instead of four.”

Dean laughs. It's a distinctly unhappy sound and it spurs Sam to move forward. “You make it sound like we're – Siamese twins or something.”

“It's conjoined twins,” Sam says. When he sits down again, he makes sure his arms and leg are pressing solidly against Dean's. He meets Benny's eyes in a calm challenge.

Sam has excellent self-control. He thinks maybe how he feels doesn't have to be sick or wrong, not so long as he doesn’t act on it.

Maybe it doesn't have to mean anything except that his brother's not alone anymore.

–

Sam straightens his tie and combs his hair until it reads less _road trip free spirit_ and more _young professional_. His reflection in the mirror looks strange, and he realizes he hasn't done _this_ , the careful construction of the confident but bland facade that used to be integral to his morning routine, in weeks.

The familiarity of the moment lasts until he exits the bathroom to find Dean sifting through a box of fake IDs. Benny has already left, gone to creep around the last vic’s house and see if he can catch a scent.

“Whoa,” Dean says, looking up at him from his chair. “Take a look at you, Sammy. You look like the real thing.”

“I am the real thing,” he reminds him. He glances down at the card in Dean's hand, pretending not to notice the sudden twist in Dean’s expression. On it is Dean's smirking face and the words _Deputy US Marshal._ “And you're not coming into the station with me.”

The distraction works; Dean's mouth falls open in outrage.

“That ID looks different than mine, it would raise questions,” Sam says.

“I can make you one to match,” Dean counters, as if that was in any way a rational solution.

“Why break the law when I have an actual legit badge? It's just easier this way.” _And you really don't need to add another impersonation charge to your rap sheet_ , he thinks to himself. Whatever happens in the future, he’s going to try to get Dean to be more careful.

When Dean continues to look mulish, Sam adds, “You should lay low. The FBI is still looking for you.”

Dean makes a grumbling noise but cedes the point after making his stand at waiting in the car outside. As they're leaving, Dean stops him with a hand on his shoulder.

He looks him up and down, eyes dark, and says, “You look like you did when I first saw you, outside Glades.”

Sam doesn't know what significance the words are supposed to hold, so he just says lightly, through his suddenly shallow breath, “I'm surprised you had a chance to take a look before shoving me down into that trunk.”

“Hey, I'm a quick study, it's part of the job.” Dean bites his lip thoughtfully and then grins. “And you had on a pretty nice suit.”

“That you smeared mud all over,” Sam says, remembering with unfortunate clarity the heat and weight of Dean at his back. Back before he knew anything, when Dean was just the oddly magnetic criminal ruining his night.

“Eh, suits like that are meant for taking off.” At that, even Dean seems to realize his innuendo has crossed a line. He shrugs and steps back, clearing his throat. “I mean – it wasn't really you. Looked good, but those hoodies and ugly-ass shirts suit you better.”

It's so close to what he'd been thinking about in the bathroom, Sam feels a little off-balance. He lets Dean lead the way out of the room before the full implication of his words settles.

“Wait, what’s wrong with my shirts?”

–

Detective Harrington of the Kansas City Police Department takes one look at Sam and asks for his name and badge number.

“I'm going to have to check in with your office,” he says. “You understand.”

“Of course,” Sam says, thankful that he'd insisted Dean stay back. He thinks Chief Deputy Nordhall's going to be surprised to hear he's in Kansas City, though, and is glad about the longstanding inter-agency reticence between the FBI and the marshals. The last thing he needs is Victor hearing about this.

Over on the phone, Detective Harrington says, “Uh huh. Yeah – oh, _is_ he?” He angles a look over at Sam, who smiles tightly. “Well, sure. I'll tell him. Thank you.”

Harrington hangs up and turns to him, eyes sharply interested. “Your superiors seem to think you're on some kind of personal leave. They'd like you to give them a call and explain yourself. You know, when you have the chance.”

“I – ” Sam begins, faintly chagrined, but he detective cuts him off.

“I almost have to admire your balls,” Harrington continues, conversational. “Young guy like yourself – surely still in his first or second year – waltzing in here on your own and trying to pass this off as official business. Like us little local cops wouldn't think twice in the face of that shiny federal badge.”

Sam shakes his head. “I'm sorry, Detective. I didn't mean any disrespect.” He take a breath, thinking fast. “I should have just been honest with you, but I was worried you'd just say what my chief did.” He lets a little bitterness bleed into his tone. “That I was too close to this case to be objective.”

Harrington's eyes widen with interest. He strolls a few feet back to his desk and takes a seat before looking up to Sam and gesturing he do the same. When Sam's seated, the detective says:

“Well, why don't you spill and let me make my own decisions.”

And Sam spills. Fabricates a grizzled father figure who recruited him, taught him everything he knew. He keeps it brief, leaving just enough breathing room for Harrington to fill in the gaps with whoever he's had in his own past.

He’s easy in his chair. This is familiar ground, the first he’s felt since reuniting with Dean. It probably says something about Sam that he’s more comfortable in an overcrowded police station than he is lounging around a motel room, but he’s not going to question what works.

“His wife – she was from Kansas City. She was back here visiting family only a week before she killed him. The recent crimes you've been investigating match his murder to a T.” Sam shakes his head. “Crazy stuff, all of it. Just seems to me like there has to be something more connecting them all. I mean, tell me honestly – do these cases feel right to you?”

Harrington hesitates, and Sam presses the advantage. He leans forward, elbows on knees, and fixes the older man with an earnest look. “Please, Detective. He meant a lot to me. I owe it to him to get to the bottom of this. To at least _try_.”

“Alright.” Harrington caves. He looks away and then back at Sam, smile grim and oddly rueful. “I'll get you copies of the reports – but listen, you think of anything or want to do anything more, you come through this department first. You got me?”

If there is one thing Sam excels at in life, it's how to say _yes sir_ and sound like he actually means it.

 

 


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. Long time. I want to thank everyone who's been reading for their patience -- the holidays plus a stressful time at work combined to make me go into this terrible writing funk. Could barely get any words out, and I hated the ones I did manage. But I seem to be mostly past that now and I'm eager to finish this story, so -- onwards! 
> 
> A big thank you to my beta espionne, whose encouragement really helped me get this chapter out. *high fives*

“You seem a little tense,” Dean says finally as they pull into the parking lot of the hospital. He throws the Impala into park and then casts Sam a look that plainly says _out with it already_ and _I knew I should have gone into the police station with you_.

Sam shrugs and feels the twinge register along the line of his shoulders. “I'm just not crazy about the fact that my office knows I'm here. It's on the record now.”

Dean doesn't say anything to that, and when Sam glances over after they climb out of the car, his brother is chewing on his lip, looking thoughtful.

They walk into the hospital. Sam flashes his badge to the nurse at the front desk and is in short order directed to room 505, where the first victim and sole potential survivor, Thomas Ashton, is lying in critical condition.

“Does it matter?” Dean asks as they enter the elevator. He presses the button and then stands back, eyes on Sam.

Sam is watching at the digital readout of the floor number. “Does what matter?”

“If it's on the record,” Dean says. Sam looks at him and he shrugs. “I mean, if you're not going back, it shouldn't really matter. Right?”

And Sam's not having this conversation. Instead of pulling his hair out or hugging Dean or fleeing, he tells him, “It's really a miracle you've eluded capture this long. You know it wouldn't be too hard for someone to look a little closer and start connecting the dots.”

Dean shrugs. “Car's warded against recognition. So long as I can drive away, they'll always be one step behind us.”

“And you're okay with spending the rest of your life looking over your shoulder?”

“Sam, every other day I'm up against something that tries to _kill_ me. I'm not going to worry about the fuzz.” The elevator doors open to the fifth floor, and Dean claps him on the shoulder as he brushes past. “Give it a few years, you'll gain some perspective.”

Sam wrinkles his nose and follows him. “Dude, you're _26_.”

–

Thomas Ashton is in a coma.

An older woman who introduces herself as his mother looks up at them from his bedside, her eyes shadowed and mouth tight. “They said that all they can do at this point is — _wait,_ ” she practically spits the last word out. “All the wonders of modern medicine, and _this_ is the best we can do.”

“I'm terribly sorry to have to bother you, Mrs. Ashton,” Sam says sincerely. “I understand this is a hard time.”

“It was hard when they first brought him in two weeks ago,” she says, glancing hard around at Dean, who is standing silent and stiff in his flannel and leather over in the corner. She looks back at Sam, a glimmer of curiosity making its way through the layers of grief and anger. “Now it just feels cruel.”

Dean stuffs his hands in his jacket pockets and shifts on his feet to look out the window. Sam doesn't know why he didn't just stay in the car if he wasn't going to so much as look at the vic or his mother.

Sam moves another chair to a polite distance from the bed and lowers himself onto it so the woman wouldn't have to keep craning her neck up at him. “Can you tell us if you remember Thomas mentioning anything out of the ordinary before the incident?”

She thinks for a moment but shakes her head. “No, nothing. Last thing we talked about was June's upcoming birthday.” Her hands spasm into fists and she smiles down at them. It's not a pleasant smile. “He wanted my help in buying the plane tickets, so she wouldn't see the purchase on their bank statement.”

He nods and asks carefully, “Have you talked to June since her arrest? The local police say she claims she never even knew Thomas. Even has the ID and character witnesses to back it up.”

It was the only detail in the news that made Sam link it to the other murders. Aside from the proximity and timing of the attack, the details simply didn’t match the murderer’s MO, but the double identity part was too bizarre not to be connected.

The history of June Ashton is paper thin — literally. Her public records included a marriage license and library card; every thing else had been in Thomas’s name. Even a long-lost identical twin would have been less weird, but the woman in police custody claims she is an only child.

Sam hasn’t been able to track down any similar incidents in the surrounding area in recent memory — he thinks this might have been the first attempt of a budding serial killer.

“Apparently she was living some kind of double life — angling for an insanity plea, I bet.” Mrs. Ashton shakes her head. “I haven’t seen her. I know I wouldn't be able to control myself.” Her eyes dart back to her son's face, clearly tracing the brutalized flesh around his eyes, one of the few areas not covered in bandages. “I just don't understand how she could do it.”

“It hard to understand how anyone can do these things,” Sam says.

“No, no – I mean. June is a small woman. It doesn't seem even physically possible, what she did.” She bites her lip. “The police say Tommy never hit back, just tried to defend himself. They said she used her fists before going for the knife.” She reaches out and brushes a hand over her son's bandaged palms.

Sam takes in her confusion and bites his cheek. He looks over at Dean, who somehow knows to turn at that moment and meet his eyes. After a second of reading whatever is on Sam’s face, Dean shakes his head slightly. Sam grits his teeth.

He looks back to the woman and tries to give her a comforting smile. It sits wrong on his face, marking him a liar. He should be used to that.

–

“We should tell her the truth,” Sam says as soon as they walk out of the hospital.

Dean makes a noise halfway between a scoff and a groan. “Is this going to be a continual thing with you? Wanting to give the whole world nightmares for the rest of their lives?”

Sam stops walking and stabs a finger back at the building. “An innocent woman is going to go to jail, and that woman in there thinks that her son's loving wife just tried to _kill_ him. You don't think it would give her just a little bit of comfort to know that's not the case?”

“Her son is probably going to die, Sam,” Dean says bluntly. “And if he doesn't, he'll still be pretty fucked up. I don't think anything is going to fucking comfort her right now. _Especially_ not the news that her daughter-in-law was a monster in disguise this whole time and, oh yeah, that too — monsters are _real_.”  

A man walking past them into the hospital does a startled double-take; Sam flashes him a smile like _don’t worry, nothing weird going on here._ He stands his ground and waits for the man to pass before saying evenly, “People have a right to know. To be prepared, to make their own decisions – ”

“Well look at you, Sammy. One or two hunts under your belt and you think you’re an expert.”

Sam flinches back, unexpectedly stung. Dean takes one look at his face and twitches in something like regret, but he doesn’t take it back.

“You don’t think things might’ve been different back then if you and Dad hadn’t kept all this secret from me?” He responds before he can stop himself.

Dean pales. “That was different. Not everyone is like you — most people are happier not knowing. Believe me.”

And with that, he turns and walks on ahead across the parking lot. Conversation over, apparently. There never was an argument Dean couldn’t win by walking away from, even when they were kids.

Sam seethes as they approach the car. For the first time since he met Dean again, he finds himself disliking him. It’s a common enough emotion to feel towards one’s brother, but instead of embracing the normalcy, Sam just feels unsettled.

The Impala is sitting between a minivan and an oldsmobile, like Ralph E. Wolf lounging in a herd of sheep. Sam looks at all that gleaming black metal and doesn't want to get in.

Dean twirls the keys around a finger as he walks up to the driver's side. He tells Sam over his shoulder, voice back to normal like nothing just happened, “Benny texted. He says he might have found something at the Wilkinson place. We're going to meet him there.”

“No,” Sam hears himself say.

Dean looks around at him, confused. “What?”

Sam shrugs, and there's that tension in his shoulders again. “I said no – I'm going to go see if I can get a look at the security footage mentioned in the report. I'll meet you back at the motel later.”

“Sam, I don't think it's a good idea to split up, not on a case like this – ”

He meets his brother's eyes squarely and repeats with added steel, “I'll see you back at the motel.”

Somehow in all the thrill of reuniting, he had forgotten how bossy Dean-the-older-brother used to be. Maybe he’d be more obliging if he’d grown up with it, but Sam got by just fine by himself for years. He doesn’t need someone to tell him what to do.  

Dean hesitates, still looking confused and a little irritated. “Don't you want me to at least drop you off or something?”

“I can walk. It's not far.”

 _Walk_ , mouths the man who might as well be surgically grafted to his car seat. Dean makes a face clearly meant to illustrate the insanity of Sam's idea, but the look fades out uncertainly when Sam remains unmoved and unamused. Dean shrugs his own shoulders, clearly uncomfortable, and looks away.

“All right,” he says, quietly, as if to himself. “See you back at the motel.”

So Sam walks. It's only about half a mile, but it feels a lot longer.

–

After some strategic deployment of Detective Harrington's name, Sam gets placed in a cramped windowless room and handed a stack of discs. The evidence technician takes a long look at his poorly concealed dismay and sighs.

“You're not the first to look, obviously,” she says and slaps a page to his chest. “Here're the video timestamps the gal from the DA's office wanted copies of. Covers all three incidents.”

“Thank you,” he tells her, emphatic. She hesitates before giving him a slight smile and leaving him alone with his hours of surveillance footage.

Even with the DA's notes, it takes two hours to go through all the discs to watch just a few minutes of relevant footage. Sam's eyes itch from squinting at the grainy images. He's acutely aware of his phone, sitting on the desk six inches away with a stubbornly dark screen.

It's only on the last disc, the one of June Ashton leaving the apartment building, that he notices something peculiar. He plays the video back three times, slowing it down so he can pause and print the image. Then he stares at it – at the blurry figure of June Ashton, caught glancing up in the general direction of the camera, two distinct bursts of light where her eyes should be.

He fumbles for his phone and texts Dean, _Think I found something on one of the Ashton tapes. Her eyes reflect light, like an animal’s._

Scant seconds later, Dean responds _sure its not just camera flare?_

Sam huffs and glances at the image again. It's far too distinct to be a trick of light. _Not like any camera flare I've ever seen._

When he doesn't get an immediate response, he shifts in his seat and cracks his neck. Shuffles all the discs back into their proper cases. Eventually, he texts again, _So what are we thinking here? Ever heard of anything like this?_

Dean's eventual response is succinct and emotionally unreadable: _shapeshifter_

–

It's dusk when he gets out of the station. He takes a cab back to the motel and watches neon signs and yellow streetlights pass by the window of the car.

He wonders what else is out there, how many monsters walk around in the shadows or hide in plain sight, snakes in the grass waiting to strike. And all those people who haven’t been told to look out.

Sam understands criminals. Even before he took his first criminal psychology course at Stanford, he had a gut-deep familiarity with the topic; several of the kids he knew growing up were in and out of juvie and have by now spent time behind bars. He understands the mindset, the constricting vise of a dead-end life that makes someone try to jump a few barriers.

But what motivates a creature that can turn into anyone — who could, if it plays its cards right, have anything it wanted? This shapeshifter had already killed two, probably three people. Is it just a bloodthirsty animal? What does it _want_?

The room is dark when Sam's cab pulls up to the sidewalk in front of the motel; Dean hasn’t returned yet. He pays and tips the driver and enters the room, only switching on the small lamp between the beds.

He is in the bathroom, about to take a shower, when he hears his phone go off. He thinks _Dean_ and quickly wraps a towel around his hips without thinking about why. He steps back into the other room and grabs up his phone.

It’s Victor.

He stares down at the screen. Watches the call ring until it finally cuts off. Dread coalesces into something solid when the voicemail notification appears. He couldn’t say why, but he knows something’s happened; it’s too soon after the call to his office to bode anything but bad.

Before he can bring himself to listen to the voicemail, the familiar rumble of the Impala pulling up in front of the motel cuts into his thoughts. He lets the phone drop back down from nerveless fingers and hitches his towel a little higher just in time to greet Dean as he comes through the door.

“Hey,” Sam says.

Dean doesn’t quite look at him at first, his gaze taking itself around the room, skittering over the table and walls covered with papers and the two narrow beds before finally landing on him. His eyes flicker down Sam’s chest and he asks, eyebrow raised, “Did I interrupt something?”

The overeager air conditioner is stuck on high and the room is downright chilly. Sam thinks he should have just gone ahead and taken the shower, but the uneasy feeling from the argument earlier has only just been underscored by the message waiting on his phone, both of them reminders of how deceptively fragile this thing with his brother is.

“I was just going to get washed up. Did you guys, uh, find anything?”

“Nah, nothing.” Dean shrugs off his jacket and sits on his bed. He looks down, seemingly preoccupied with studying his boots, and makes no effort to say anything else. Sam shifts his footing.

“Okay, well,” he says after a moment. He jerks a thumb back at the bathroom and feels like a tool. “I'm just going to – ”

“Mm, yeah, enjoy yourself,” Dean says without looking up.

Sam takes the quickest shower he can, head down and hands brisk. He's thankful he brought a change of clothing into the room with him, that he doesn't have to marching back out there without some armor on.

He doesn’t think Dean is angry about earlier, but his reaction felt distinctly off, and it made Sam feel more naked than usual. Which is ridiculous, because just yesterday Sam had been standing in the bathroom with his shirt unbuttoned and his brother had reached out and patted his stomach, carefree as you please. The sudden difference is – weird.

Sam's pulling on a shirt when he realizes he's seriously considering the possibility that his brother is an imposter just because he didn't leer at him. Jesus, his life.

He pads out of the bathroom and heads straight over to his duffle to get some new socks. He bends over the bag, shaking wet hair out of his eyes, and asks without looking over:

“So where's Benny?”

Dean's voice comes from closer than expected, right behind him, and it takes every ounce of Sam's control not to jump. “I left him poking around the Wilkinson place.”

“Still?” Sam turns, socks in hand. He sits on his bed and puts them on, movements deliberately casual. “Thought that was a dead end.”

He looks up to where Dean is standing over him. He can’t for the life of him can't tell if Dean's acting weird because of the fight or because he's secretly a serial killing supernatural monster. It’s incredible how a steady measured gaze can go either way.

“There was some blood on the window sill of the second floor bedroom.”

But Sam's not really been listening. He stares at Dean dumbly for a second before saying, “What?”

Dean's eyebrows arch up, slow and mocking, and in an instant he's just Sam's brother again. “Benny,” Dean says, slow like Sam is apparently being, “is checking out a blood trail from the second floor. Jesus, Sam, what's with you?” His expression flickers. “Is this about earlier? Is that why you're wigging out?”

“I'm not _wigging out,_ ” Sam says tensely. He gets to his feet, shaking his head, and turns away. “Sorry, man. I guess this case has me on edge. I mean, ghosts and _dog-men_ are one thing, but a creature that can turn into another person? That's just really – insidious.”

Dean doesn't say anything for a moment. Sam takes a deep steadying breath and looks out the window, out at the garish lights and mundane traffic of the strip mall across the street. After a second his eyes narrow and he cocks his head.

The Impala is parked in front of the motel room, nudged up close and scraping over the concrete step of the sidewalk.

He goes very still.

“Insidious,” the voice behind him says. It's low like Dean's, a little rough like Dean's. But Sam doesn't think it belongs to Dean. “Is that some kind of college boy word for _freak_?”

Sam's gun is across the room in the shoulder holster slung over the corner armchair. He never stood a chance.

–

He is taken down into the sewers, of all places. The creature is able to lift his body into a fireman's carry with an absurd ease. Every time he struggles and fights to break its grasp, it bounces his head off a wall.

The last time it does this is right before depositing him in front of a pillar. He groans and it shushes him, leaning in close to bind his arms back. Dean's voice close in his ear, telling him _everything's going to be just fine_. The cold wet cement at his back, leaching warmth from his body. It's a total mindfuck.

When the shifter has finished tightening its knots, it steps back and surveys him, eyes dark. It rubs a hand consideringly over Dean's mouth for an uncomfortably long moment before turning away.

Sam looks around the small alcove, eyes tracking over the piles of clothing, the piles of discarded canned food and trash. It looks like the shifter has been living down here for a while. The setting is dank and miserable, and somehow it makes the shifter seem even less human. Sam tries to keep that thought foremost in his mind.

“Are you going to kill me?”

The thing wearing Dean's face turns quickly at that, dropping down onto one knee so it can get up close. Sam’s eyes catch on a glint of metal; it's got the amulet he gave Dean. Sam thinks about the implications of that and feels a bolt of real fear.

“I have no interest in hurting _you_ , Sam.” A hand comes up and cups his cheek. “I think you’ve been hurt enough for one lifetime.”

Sam resolutely turns his face away, the most he can do to flinch back from the shifter's touch. “What are you talking about?”

“I heard your argument, back at the hospital,” it says. Sam’s thoughts dart around in frantic confusion before remembering the man who had been listening as he walked past. He wonders why the shifter had been at the hospital in the first place, wonders if Thomas Ashton and his mother are still alive.

“You thought people should be ready for the truth, and all your brother could talk about was monsters. It piqued my curiosity about you two. And now? The more I learn about you and your brother – I thought I came from a bad background.”

At Sam’s confused look, it taps its forehead meaningfully. “See, Sam, I _remember_. It's all up here. The memories – storming out of that motel room.”

Sam stiffens in realization. “You have his memories too? How is that even possible?”

The shifter continues as if he hadn’t spoken. “The look on Dad's face when he picked me up from the police, when we realized you were gone. Had been taken. And it was all my fault.” Its voice is far away but grim, and there's a peculiar hint of fear lying underneath its words – undeserved fear. Sam grits his teeth when he hears it.

He unwillingly looks up at the creature – wants, in a sick and dreadful way, to see what look on Dean's face matches that voice. Even if it's not really his brother.

Dean always wears a carefree expression like shrugging on his leather jacket, but his eyes are not much good at concealing his feelings. Sam thinks it’s why he likes driving so much — he can have company in the car but a ready excuse to avoid eye contact.

Right now, there is none of the usual underlying restraint; emotion that is usually carefully banked flickers over Dean’s face like a reflection on still water. Green eyes wander hungrily over Sam like they could look for one hundred years and still not be satisfied.

He's not so familiar with Dean's face that his subconscious knows the difference between the fake and the real; part of him looks at Dean looking at him with such intense focus and _likes_ it. The rest of him feels sick. He doesn't know how much is the shifter playing with him and how much is the truth. For Dean's sake, he hopes it's all fake; is too intensely private for him to feel anything but ashamed of witnessing.

“I'm going to fix my mistakes,” it reassures him.

Sam finally finds his voice. It comes out weaker than he likes, confused and wrong-footed. “What's that mean?” He watches tensely as the shifter walks back behind the pillar he's tied to, back out of his line of sight. “Wait. What are you going to do?”

There's a pause and then a low groan. Sam twists against his bindings, trying desperately to see what's happening. He gains no purchase but is shocked still by the noise he hears next, a wet tearing sound followed by a sickening squelch.

He's not prepared for the sight of his own body walking back out of the alcove, dressed only in Dean's boxers and t-shirt. Its expression is placid and cool as it reaches for Sam's duffle. It dresses quickly, pulling on a hoodie and pair of ratty jeans.

It continues speaking to him, throwing the words over its shoulder. “I know what it’s like to be abandoned, Sam. You try to become someone else, to build a life. But someone always shows up to take it away, right?” It pauses, closing its eyes and lifting a hand to its temple, as if struck by a sudden headache. When it opens them again, Sam is the target of a pair of identical hazel eyes, locking on to him like it can see right through. “You fought so hard to get where you’re at, and now you’re thinking about throwing it all away? For the man who abandoned you?”

Looking at his stolen face is unsettling but no where near as disarming as his brother's had been. There's no confusion about who he's looking at, and the shifter’s attempts to dig at him with his own private doubts perversely only serves to solidify the feeling of denial. People have always said he was stubborn.

“What are you going to do?”

The shifter glances back at him, a narrow appraising gaze that's a far cry from the intensely adoring one the creature had fixed him with just minutes before.

“I'm going to finish our mission, the one you allowed yourself to get distracted from.” It picks up Sam's Glock and considers it for a moment before tucking it into the back of his waistband like some kind of punk gangbanger. “Time for that miserable excuse for family to get his just desserts.”

“You – wait,” Sam says. “If you get our thoughts when you shift, you know that's not what I want.”

“It's not what you _think_ you want. Not yet. But I'll show you.” The shifter turns back and looks at him. “I can be strong enough for the both of us. For all three of us, really – Dean, he's guilty as sin and knows it. I'll be doing him a favor.”

“I don't want him hurt,” Sam says desperately.

“What you _want_ , Sam,” the shifter says, “is to look out for yourself. Always have.” It angles a cool smile over its shoulder at him as it leaves. “And now I'm going to help you do it.”

–

Calloused fingers, gentle but stumbling rough over his face like they're not used to being careful, are the second thing he feels when he's next conscious. The first is a terrible pounding in his head, but that seems less important.

He cracks his eyes open and his vision swims a moment, the light making nonsense out of shapes until his brain remembers how to process it all. Dean's face resolves first, tight with worry, and Sam blinks slowly at it.

Looking at his brother now, he doesn't know how he had been fooled by the shifter. Even gripped by his psychotic emotional transference, there had been something cold about it, like it could only channel one feeling at a time. It showed in its eyes and in the swift, deadly way it moved.

Right now Dean’s is blazing with at least ten different emotions, half of them one form of anger or another. His hand, still working at the rope around Sam’s neck, is shaking slightly.

“This better be really you,” Sam croaks, even though he knows it is.

Dean grins, bright and fierce in his relief. “One of a fucking kind, dude.”

Dean slaps him on the shoulder, a little too hard, and then bends forward to work on the second rope tying Sam to the pillar. It's cold down in the sewer, and Sam can't help but lean forward to the full extent the binding allows to get a little closer to Dean's warmth.

“How'd you find me?” Sam asks. His thoughts plod along, spongy and formless. He thinks he's probably concussed.

“Well,” Dean says. “Benny took a walk around the area, tracked your scent. The lore says shapeshifters like to hole up underground, so we figured the sewer was a good bet. What about you, did you see where he went?”

Sam's head starts to clear, and he remembers the last thing the shifter has said to him. He grunts an assent and shrugs his shoulders. “Last thing I saw was him turning into me.”

“Well, he's not stupid.” Dean face appears in Sam's line of vision, a small smirk tugging at his mouth. “He picked the pretty one.”

Sam suppresses an eye roll. “It went as you first, why do you think I ended up here?”

Dean’s smirk drops. “That thing was wearing my face? _And_ driving my car?” When Sam gives a slightly bemused nod in confirmation, he says, “That’s it, I’m wasting him.”

Sam kind of wants to protest about the difference in Dean’s reaction to his own face being stolen rather than Sam’s, but instead he just says, “Yeah, well, we have to find it first — just finish with these ropes, will you.”

“So impatient.” Dean grunts, but a second later Sam feels the ropes loosen and he's able to pull free.

“Dean,” he says once he's standing on his own two feet. “I think he was going after you. We need to get back to the motel.”

“Benny'll be able to tell the difference,” Dean says, but there's still a tension to his frame as he looks around and grabs Sam's duffle. He turns back and hauls one of Sam's arms around his shoulder, never minding Sam's protests that he can walk fine. They starts shuffling down the sewer line, their steps echoing ahead of them into the darkness.

“Did you know shifters can read your mind?” Sam asks. “I mean – once they've taken your shape?”

Dean cocks his head. Sam feels the brush of his hair against his neck.

“I dunno,” Dean says. “My – Dad never encountered one, at least not according to his journal. But nothing would surprise me when it comes to these freaks.” He pauses, a little tense. “Why? What did it say to you?”

Sam thinks of the anger in the shifter's eyes when it was pretending to be him, the guilt and palpable self-loathing when it was Dean. The creature's obviously certifiable; its hobby of slicing and dicing people is proof of that. But he can't help but think that from an evolutionary standpoint, shifters would be fitter if they could download memories and thoughts, to better mimic their prey.

“Doesn't matter,” Sam says finally. “It’s not relevant.”


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of credit goes to espionne for the shifter case; without her input, I assure you, the arc would have been pretty cursory and pitiful.

Their motel room is dark. They think the shifter is lying in wait for them; every few minutes the curtain wavers a little, as if someone inside is peeking out around the edges.

It's going on midnight on a weeknight, and there are four other cars in the lot, each parked a few doors down on either side. And this isn't some down-on-its-luck motel on the outskirts of Small Town, West Virginia; Sam doesn't see how this fight goes down with attracting attention.

They have one gun with the right bullets and two silver knives between them. All Dean's, because when the shifter took Sam's bag, it had made sure to dump his backup service guns first. Not that they would’ve done much good. Sam’s still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that he could empty a regular clip in the shifter’s chest and it wouldn’t do a damn thing.

They duck down behind a dumpster across the street and Sam says to Dean, “If we use that gun, we'll have the police down here in less than ten minutes.”

Dean looks at him impatiently. “If the thing's dead, it won't matter. We can just leave.”

“Yeah, but what if you don’t get it?” Sam asks. “The gun’s too much of a risk — if anything goes wrong, we'll have a mess of police and bystanders to deal with in addition to the shifter.” And all those people would see the shifter wearing Sam's face, he doesn't add.

“I think I'd rather take our chances on my aim than go in there and try to tango with a supernaturally strong freak armed only with a boot knife.” He shifts on his haunches and looks back at the motel, tension evident in his shoulders. “Now can we focus on the important thing here? That freak could have Benny.”

Sam thinks of the promise he made to Detective Harrington and knows he'll be smoked. Even if they manage to bundle the body away, a quick description from the motel clerk of the room's inhabitants would be enough to ID him and set off a domino line of disaster. His options are narrowing fast.

Treacherously, he wishes for a moment that he’d never found this case, never read the news that morning after their reunion drink. Dean sprawled out nearby, tempting, warm, and completely off limits; he’d needed a distraction and the connect-the-dots puzzle had served that need well. But he’d never imagined it turning out like this.

“How are we even going to do this?” Sam asks, turning his attention back to the motel. “The curtains are open, so we can't really sneak up. And the only way in is through the door.”

Dean thinks about it for a moment. “Break a window and toss in a smoke grenade. Shoot the shifter soon as it clears the room.”

Sam stares at him, long enough for Dean to give him a bemused look in response.

“Dean, we’re not throwing a grenade into our motel room,” he says at last, incredulous.

“What, you got a better idea?” Dean is insultingly skeptical, like he cannot imagine a world where smoke grenades and point-blank weapons discharge in a densely populated commercial district were not the key component of a sensible plan.

“Yeah,” Sam says after a moment, sounding more sure than he feels. “I think I do.”

–

Sam approaches the door at an easy pace, making sure he’s well in view of the room's window and that his hands are away from his sides and clearly empty.

He can practically feel Dean still worrying ten feet back where he is crouched behind a Chrysler LeBaron. He doesn’t like Sam’s plan, even though he’d eventually agreed to it after fifteen minutes of arguing.

“There’s too much talking, not enough shooting. And I don’t like you going in there alone,” he’d said. Which was gratifying to hear, but hardly a good enough reason to nix the only plan they have that isn’t using a grenade in a crowded motel. “And just so we understand each other, I am kicking that door in with guns blazing if I think things have gotten FUBAR.”

Sam squares himself in front of the chipped paint of the room's door and takes a breath. He raises his hand and knocks.

The door opens immediately; Sam looks past his own wary face to where Benny sits tied up in the corner chair.

“That's a neat trick,” he says at Benny's disgruntled face. He looks at the shifter. “How'd you manage it?”

“Oh, you learn a thing or two over the years,” comes the smug reply. The shifter lifts its arms; he has a gun in one hand and Sam’s phone in the other. It’s the latter that sends Sam’s already elevated pulse jumping.

“Why don't you come in so we can talk some more.” The shifter gestures with the gun, making it clear that the invitation was not one he could refuse.

Eyes on the phone, Sam apologizes to the Dean in his head and steps across the threshold.

“You alright?” he asks Benny, because Dean would probably want him to.

“I'll be fine in a while,” Benny says. He nods to the shifter. “You know, he offers some keen insights into the mind of Sam Wesson.”

“Does he,” Sam says, thinking he shouldn’t have asked after all. “I'm sure you were all too eager to listen.”

Benny shrugs as much as his bindings allow, face bland. “Let's just say it sounds like your definition of family and a vampire's isn't all that different.”

Sam doesn't know what to make of that, so he leaves it for now. He looks back at the shifter, who is watching him with an unblinking intensity that makes him feel a little sorry for anyone who has been on the receiving end of his own glares.

The shifter watches his face greedily as it waggles the phone. “Yeah, you forgot this in the room earlier. The battery died but don’t worry, I took a message. Your detective buddy wanted you to know that they found Terry Wilkinson’s body.”

Terry Wilkinson, boyfriend and suspected assailant of the third victim. Sam licks his lips and looks from the phone to the shifter. “What did you do?”

“Let’s just say snatching you wasn’t the only thing I did earlier this evening. And that now the authorities know Dean Winchester’s in town.” It steps in closer to Sam so it can reach around and close the door, which shuts with a quiet _snick_. And then he's standing in a dark room, the only visibility coming from the streetlamp glow spilling in through the window. It makes his stolen gun and amulet shine out against the muted matte of the shifter's clothing.

The words are casual but the tone is anything but: “Speaking of — where is big brother? Or did you get out all on your own?”

They’re getting off track, so Sam takes the opportunity to redirect. “Dean went back to the hospital. To check on Thomas.”

He watches, a little fascinated, as some violent emotion floods his own face. It’s been a long time since he trained himself out of public displays of anger, and he feels like Dorian Grey facing his portrait.

The shifter resets its jaw and meets Sam's eyes.

“What do you want with Tom?” It asks, gripping the gun tighter.

Sam can't help but dart a glance at it. Dean will be really pissed if Sam ends up shot; Sam will be pissed if it's with his own damn gun. “While you had me tied up down in that sewer, I started thinking about what I'd read in the paper. Ashton was always the outlier. The June Jackson that the police arrested over in Leavenworth claims to have no connection to him, says she's never met him in her life. And I thought that was a little weird, since every other person you took the identity of knew the victim. Intimately.”

Sam sidles to the side, not closer to Benny, which would make the shifter tense up, but enough to take attention away from the window. The shifter watches him like a snake, narrow-eyed and absolutely still.

“You want to know why I chose June, Sam, is that it?”

It doesn’t sound as off-kilter as he’d like, but Sam reminds himself of his training. Any successful negotiation with a criminal requires a certain amount of emotional give-and-take. He nods for it to continue, and it does with seeming relish.

“I grew up with June. Pretty little June.” It sketches a shape in the air with Sam’s gun. “Her life was like a fairytale – adopted after only a few months, grew up in a four-bedroom house with a doting mother and father, all state in track and field, voted prom queen her junior year.”

Maybe it's the fact that the shifter is still wearing his face, spitting out ugly jealousy like Sam has never allowed himself to, but his mind is stuck like a bad clutch on the one detail. “You're a foster kid.”

“Orphan,” the shifter corrects. “My mother couldn't handle what she gave birth to. I read it in some paperwork once; she swallowed a bottle of pills and just left me lying there in the crib. The neighbors noticed the smell after a few days and called the police. But I was fine.”

“You seem fine,” Sam agrees, keeping his voice light.

The story is not too different than ones he’s heard a hundred times over from other foster kids, but it’s different this time, listening to his own voice tell it. It could’ve been him, and what difference would it really have made if it had been? They all ended up in the same place.

“I was never placed in a real home. Just old fashioned group residential for me. People couldn't even be _paid_ to take me.” It looks back at him, like it’s trying to find its way back to the conversation. “I like you, Sam. You’re like me and I want to help you. Dean, he’s fool’s gold. A false promise. You think you’ve got him now and everything will work out, but he’ll leave you in the end. Just like everybody else.”

Sam swallows and looks away — and there, through the window is a figure approaching the room. Dean, crouched down and gun out.

He says, needing to get the conversation as far away from the topic of Dean as possible, “I meant to ask you. You were married to Thomas for almost a year.” Sam shifts his weight to the balls of his feet, watches the shifter stiffen. The figure outside is now at the door. “So I wanted to know – did you always plan on killing him? Or could you just not help yourself?”

The shifter’s smile snaps off and it whips Sam across the cheek with the pistol.

He yells out and goes down. Tucks and rolls instinctively to get some distance between them, even as a trio of loud noises fill the room in quick succession: the crack of the door splintering open and hitting the opposite wall — and a gunshot.

Sam looks up, feeling blood trickle down his face, and sees that Dean only got the shifter in the shoulder. For some reason he isn’t firing again. Instead, Dean is staring at the shifter, wide-eyed. Sam suddenly remembers that he hadn't seen it yet.

The shifter lets go of its bleeding shoulder and raises Sam's gun with a snarl. Dean, still staring dumbly at its face, doesn't move.

“No — ” Sam lunges up and tackles it. The gun goes skittering a few feet away and they roll across the floor, grappling and knocking over a lamp and chair. They end up on their sides, the shifter putting Sam between it and Dean’s line of shot. Its hands seal together around his neck.

“I was trying to help you,” it hisses hatefully at him from inches away.

Sam gasps for breath, one hand scrabbling for purchases against the shifter's, the other grasping the knife strapped to his side under his shirt.

“You think Dean won’t reject you as soon as he finds out what you’re really like? That everyone won’t?”

Sam can only grunt and gurgle desperately in response. He gets the knife unclipped from its sheath.

“Sam!” He hears from far away.

Finally, he gets a grip on the knife and drives it up under the shifter's ribs. It falls on its back and he follows after it, switching his grip on the blade’s handle and plunging it back into the shifter’s chest. He repeats the motion, fear and rage making the movement mindless, erratic in the slip-slide of blood.

Muscle resists until it just doesn't. He watches the light go out of his own eyes, watches until they become glassy and blank and then he takes a deep shuddering breath, like he's reassuring himself he still can. Several moments pass before he can loosen his grip on the knife and slide off the body. His hands are suddenly nerveless, his breath oddly shallow.

He's never killed anyone before.

“Sam,” Dean says, suddenly crouching in front of him. He's a little pale but looks otherwise normal as he places a hand on his shoulder. “Sam, we gotta get out of here. The neighbors will have heard the gun.”

Sam blinks slowly at him. With a very great effort, he manages to say through a throat blooming sore from the imprint of his own hands, “I told you so.”

Dean huffs a breath and switches his grip so that he's helping him stand. “Save it for later, kid.”

The first thing they do is untie Benny and half-carry him to the backseat of the Impala.

“I don't like this,” Benny says, rearranging his limbs with slow and clumsy determination.

“You've had to carry me like this out of plenty of bars,” Dean says, cheer seeping slowly back into his voice. “Just pretend you had a wild night out.”

Sam, a little numb and not really in the mood for banter, closes the car door on Benny's reply and turns back to the room. He sees a curtain move from the window of the neighboring rooms and it spikes an urgency in his otherwise exhausted nerves.

It takes all of their combined strength to lift up the rapidly cooling body and move it to the car. In death the skin has already started to lose its hold on the body, and the lessened traction is a sickening sensation under their hands.

They heave it onto a rubber tarp in the trunk, and Sam tries very hard not to think about anything as he goes to shut the door on his own dead face.

“Wait,” Dean says suddenly, and Sam wonders how he could possibly want to spend another second looking at it. The emotion evaporates as his brother reaches down and tugs the leather string from around the shifter's neck.

The little brass head of the amulet swings down from his fist, gleaming triumphant in the night.

–

Lights and sirens in the distance as they take their fourth evasive turn. With Benny half passed-out in the back and Sam unable yet to speak, the ride is a mostly silent affair. They pull in once at a rest stop, and Sam washes the blood from his hands, crimson running down a stainless steel drain, his face looking sickly pale under the buzzing fluorescents. Then they get back on the road and drive an hour down 169 before pulling into a motel just south of Osawatomie.

Sam helps haul Benny into a new room before collapsing fully-clothed on top of one of the beds.

Dean sits down on the second bed and looks him over, brow creased faintly with worry. His hands tangle together in his lap, like they want to be doing something but don’t know how.

“Sam. You okay?”

“Yeah.” Sam turns his head away and shuts his eyes. “I just. Wanna go to sleep, that’s all.”

“Yeah, sure.” Dean doesn't move for a moment. “This’ll all be better when you wake up. I promise.”

Sam doesn't respond, and he falls asleep to Dean and Benny's muttered conversation, too muddle-headed to bother listening, too heart-sore to care what they say.

–

Sam doesn't know if things are better when he wakes up late in the morning the next day, but they're certainly different. He stands barefooted in front of the window and and feels unmoored.

Different town, different motel, different road. He thinks he gets it, now. These places, they're all just pages in a flipbook, important only for how they lead to the next step, the next action. What matters isn't the trappings, or lack thereof, of this life. It's who he can share it with.

Over in the other bed, Dean lets out a loud snore and turns onto his stomach.

Outside the room, a rust-red Buick Riviera with tinted windows pulls up beside the Impala and Benny climbs out. Sam opens the door before he can unlock it, and they look at each other for a long measuring moment.

“Go shopping?” He asks finally, tipping his chin at the car.

“Took a while. I have very specific needs.” Benny glances with a grimace up at the sky, and Sam relents, moving aside to let him into the room.

“I came back for the body,” Benny says, casual like he's talking about picking up the dry cleaning. Sam remembers the thing in the trunk of the Impala and swallows back his response.

“Let me get changed and I'll help you move it,” he says. Benny can probably lift the thing by himself, having seemingly recovered from whatever had incapacitated him before. But instead of pointing this out, he just nods and waits as Sam grabs a change of clothing from his bag and goes into the bathroom.

Outside the room, they glance quickly around the deserted parking lot before making the switch. It's easier this time; rigor mortis has set in and they don't need to fold back the tarp to expose the body, just heft it up as a bundle and set it back down around the spare tire in the Riviera's trunk.

“What are you going to do with it?” Sam asks, stepping back.

“I know a ghoul down in Amarillo. We have a standing arrangement.”

Sam really doesn’t want to know, so he just lets that fall where it is. He lets out a sigh of relief when they close the door, once more hiding it from the world. Benny stands there observing him with a faint smile, that knowing look he’s given Sam from the start and that usually makes Sam instinctively bristle.

“What?” Sam asks finally, unwilling. “What is it?”

Benny says, “Just trying to get a sense of where you're at. Some people, they think they can hack the life of a hunter, but you never know until you’ve had your first real kill.”

“I appreciate the concern,” Sam says. “But I'm fine.”

“No doubts left? The lawman in you isn't bucking against all _this_?” He nods down at the closed trunk and its contents.

“No.” Any problems Sam has have nothing to do with the law.

Benny sidles closer, and he can't help but tense up. Friend of Dean's or no, the man is still a vampire, and Sam’s body gets the same prickle of danger from him as he did from the shifter.

“Well let me just say, _Sam_ , you still reek of bitterness and anger, the kind that don't wash out. You might think everything's fine now, but sooner or later that part of you's going to come inching back.” Benny stares him down. “And when it does, I worry it's all gonna come down on Dean.”

“You're wrong,” Sam says, like Benny hasn't just pegged Sam's worst qualities perfectly. But Sam's sure now, more sure than he's ever been in his life. His identity has always been wrapped up in being independent and in control and if he's throwing that out for Dean, there's no going back. Sam will simply never recover.

Instead of saying any of that, he tells him, “He’s my brother. I'm not going to just let him go.”

“You still carrying that badge of yours?” Is all Benny says in response.

Sam just looks at him. Wordlessly, he reaches over to the Impala's trunk and lifts the concealed partition. Without blinking or looking away from Benny, he pulls his badge out of his jacket pocket and tosses it down.

They both look down at where it now lies next to all the other relics and odd-and-ends of the hunting life. Benny doesn’t speak.

Sam nods at him, shuts the trunk door, and goes back inside the motel.

–

Sam doesn't know he's going to kiss Dean until he does it. Like any other time he's fucked up in life, his own recklessness rears up out of nowhere, taking him as much by surprise as anyone else.

He's restless and jittery from the moment Dean wakes up. The feeling stalks him all through breakfast and Dean's long conversation with Benny over the Riviera. Benny occasionally looks at him, something speculative in his eye, but he doesn't comment and before long he is saying goodbye and driving off. A vampire in sunglasses behind the wheel, dead shifter in the trunk, and Dean waving  _bon voyage._

It's not unlike adrenaline, this unhinged feeling that builds up as he follows Dean back into the motel room. If he'd been thinking about it from a distance, he could have tried to explain it; the world has taken on a heightened sense of unreality, he's just thrown everything he's ever known to the side, and all he has, all he can focus on, is Dean.

Dean, who is solid, present. Dean, who is, miraculously, his brother.

“You okay, man?” Dean asks him. He looks as Sam without a shadow of doubt or suspicion. “You seemed a little shook up last night. And you’ve been pretty quiet all morning.”

“The shifter was an orphan,” he hears himself say. “Grew up in the system.”

Dean cocks his head, not quite getting it.

“Do you think – if things had just gone a little different for me. If I had just gotten a little more screwed up.” He can't bring himself to finish the thought, but this time Dean's there, ready for the relay.

He steps in, reassuring when Sam deserves anything but. “Sam, that thing was a monster. And, listen, I'm not saying you're not one weird dude sometimes – but you're no freak.”

And Sam, ever the contrarian, well. He just has to prove him wrong.

Sam kissed Dean once before, and the foremost feeling he remembers having was _surprise_. He'd been doing it as a ruse, a distraction tactic for his escape, but the kiss itself was like a flash in the dark, a shock of instant connection with this man he'd only just met. He'd fallen asleep in the nights following, mentally pummeling himself over the memory of that mouth and the little noises it had made as he'd taken it, over who it belonged to and what he'd unknowingly done.

He reaches out now with full knowledge of who they are to each other. Dean's eyes remain clear and unsuspecting even after Sam's hands come up to cup his face, and Sam only catches how they widen at the last second. Then he's finally sealing his mouth over his brother's and everything else is dropping away.

Dean kisses back instantly, like they do this every day, like he's been standing at this precipice for ages, just waiting for the signal from Sam that he should jump. A hand drifts up and buries itself in his hair, sparking little burrs of pleasure as the fingers flex against his scalp and tangle in the strands. Sam moans a little then, and Dean's entire body goes rigid.

Just as suddenly as it began, he's being pushed back. Dean deflects his automatic attempt at hauling him back in with an absent twist of his arm, too busy staring up at him with startled eyes.

“Wait, Sam,” he gasps. “Wait.”

Sam's hand clench and unclench, missing what they'd just been holding. “What?”

“You're, uh,” Dean licks his bottom lip, a distracting swipe of tongue. “You're probably in shock, or something. Right?”

Sam waits a second, looking him over as if this might be a poorly timed joke. It’s not.

“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” He demands. Dean watches his mouth as he says it, which is only more infuriating. They're both breathing hard like they've run five miles, but Dean still says:

“I'm not, I swear I'm not.” He makes a complicated expression and says, “Sam, you were alone with that freak for a while. I don't know what it said to you, but I'm not about to – mess you up.”

“I’m already messed up.” He feels like it should be obvious to anyone who looks at him.

Dean's brow wrinkles slightly, startled. “What?”

“Dean,” Sam says, hot and desperate all over, the adrenaline still thrumming through his body. “Do you want this?” Because in the end, that’s the only thing that matters.

His brother steps back, frustration painting his face. “Sam, even before I knew who you _were_ , all I wanted – the only thing that I could think about was keeping you with me. And that hasn't changed. Anything else – nothing is more important to me than that.”

“That's not an answer.”

He just blinks at Sam, looking a little lost. Sam draws back a little, heat receding from his brain and being replaced with a cresting wave of horror. What was he thinking. What has he done.

Dean throws his arms out in a shrug that looks like it's meant to encompass the world or maybe just Sam. He says, sounding almost confused, “I don't get what I want.”

And despite the implication of his words, his tone is final. The rejection resolute. Sam lets him retreat to the bathroom without argument and feels a chill settle in around his bones.

–

A quarter mile away from the motel where he just made the biggest mistake of his life, Sam sits on a bar stool and stares blankly down at his soda.

He'd come to the bar for a drink, only to remember at the last moment that he probably shouldn't have any alcohol. He wonders bleakly if he can blame a concussion for the stupidity of his actions in the past few hours.

As if to underscore the failure of this bar venture, people refuse to leave him alone. Two girls have already approached and tried to cajole him into chatting, like they saw a brooding man with uncombed hair and a bruised neck and face and found it irresistible or maybe just pitiable. Another man tried to chat him up, which surprised Sam enough to almost look up, but his stony silence drove him away too.

He wonders what Jess would say if she could see him now. It’s a distant thought.

Eventually everyone just leaves him alone at the end of the bar. He sits there, every so often getting a mental flash of the scene from the motel that forces him to close his eyes and take a steadying breath. It's either that or break his fist on the solid oak counter top.

He is staring out the window when another shadow comes up behind him in the reflection. He grits his teeth and wonders what is up with this town, gets ready to deflect this newest attempt.

“Buy you a drink?”

Sam spins in his seat and stares up at Dean.

He's standing there, shoulders tensed and defensive. At some point before coming out, he put on his leather jacket, even though it's summer and the air conditioning in this place is busted. There's an edge around his eyes, half-evasive, half-irritated, that look he gets when he's nervous and would rather punch his way out of a situation than talk.

“I'd love one,” he says slowly, mouth going through the motions even as he’s already forgotten the question. He searches Dean's eyes and asks, “Wanna sit?”

He does and then they're together, silent but unable to look away. After a second, Dean swallows and ticks his smile to one side, wry and a little self-deprecating, helplessly charming. He lifts his hand to Sam and says, looking through his lashes: “I'm Dean.”

Sam looks at the hand and allows himself, for just a moment, to think of everything.

He thinks of Dean making them dinner over counters slightly too tall for a twelve-year-old to use comfortably; of the absence of him that was so painful for the first few years, he spent more time talking about codependency in shrinks’ offices than not. He thinks of the day not long after he turned sixteen, after he'd found what he took as truth, and how he'd curled up in his newly rented single room and shuddered through fierce tears of longing one final time.

He thinks of being held close in the dark interior of a trunk by a man he's just met and being asked to entertain wistful questions of what if.

He hesitates and then: “I'm Sam.”

He takes Dean's hand and doesn't let go.


	21. Chapter 21

When Sam was seventeen, he worked three jobs, two of them under the table, and lived out of a cramped studio apartment in Denver.

It was an exhausting life. The work combined with studying for a battery of SAT subject tests meant he didn't have a spare minute to think. But he was getting by, he was starting to get his feet under him. Then one night he got jumped coming home.

He'd finally hit a growth spurt but was still reed-slender, and it took every inch of effort and half-forgotten moves to dislodge his assailant. After, he kicked him in the groin and ran like hell.

Back in the apartment, he threw the deadbolt and hooked a chair underneath the door knob. But he couldn’t settle.

He didn't have so much free time that he could afford a disruption to his schedule; he needed to take a shower (three minutes), make dinner (fifteen), and then do some studying on logarithms (at least forty-five) before he could go to sleep (five and a half hours). The numbers of his night ran along the back of his mind like ticker tape, but he couldn’t move to act on them.

He wasn’t calming down. His breath came on too fast, and he was distantly aware that he was shaking. Any attempt to reign in the motion only triggered a violent shudder and then he’d give a gasp, this wild and ragged sound that was too wretched to be borne in the quiet of the night.

So he stopped trying to keep still and got to pacing. He walked the perimeter of his miserable room until he was swaying, some unknown amount of time, and then he collapsed on top of his sleeping bag and slept. He was back to normal in the morning.

It was a lesson that he thought he’d already learned, one that should not have had to be taught more than once, but there it was: he was on his own and he needed to have control.

Sam's not used to having someone look out for him. He thinks that's what Dean is trying to do. It sends part of his brain into instinctual panic mode, just like it always had when Jess had gotten a little too insistent with her gentle reminders back in college. But the rest of him responds with relief, and that's almost worse. Like capitulation to his brother is written somewhere in his base code and there's no overriding it.

Somehow Dean knows exactly what to do.

—        

Dean has no idea what he is doing.

They can’t stay in the bar, he knows that much. He doesn't think Sam has noticed, but people have been giving him some seriously sketched-out looks. He has bruises on his face and neck. Red-rimmed eyes that look a little manic underneath all the smudged exhaustion.

Yeah, they shouldn't stay in the bar.            

He operates mostly on instinct as he ushers Sam out. Hand on his lower back like he's a trauma case or something and not six foot three inches of muscle and prickly temper. Soon enough they're back out on the sunny parking lot. The heat rising from the cracked asphalt instantly makes him wish for shade again.

The Impala's back at the hotel, but Dean doesn't think they should go back there yet, because being indoors alone with Sam right now would be a bad idea. Sam might kiss him again, and Dean's not a glutton for punishment, never mind what Benny says.                

Right, so – not the hotel. Something very different, more wholesome and family-like, less scratchy sheets and and curtains that would hide away all the things he wants to do to his brother.

The whole time he’s thinking, Sam just stands and watches him with narrowed eyes. He doesn’t say anything, but there’s a tension to his mouth that says he wants to.

Dean doesn't know the details of Sam's life after Nebraska. Kid's kind of fucked up, he gets that much. And when someone as high-strung as Sam gets fucked up, it’s not pretty. High strung turns too easily into strung out. He thinks if he tried, he could probably find hints of that in his memory of his little brother, even at eight years old. Weird things, like how he'd get so anxious about switching schools mid-quarter. His bratty insistence on mailing his book report on _Stuart Little_ to a former teacher two states away.   

“We should grab something to eat,” Dean says.

He keeps up a steady stream of stupid chatter as they walk. _Did you see that food truck on the way over here? Two for one taco special, chicken looked like it was prepared on site, you know that's the good shit. You hungry?_ And then without waiting for a response, because he's a shit excuse for a brother and can't remember what Sam had actually eaten at breakfast: _of course you are, I'm starving. Let's grab some grub and find a place to eat it._

What does he know about taking care of someone? He's already fucked up on two counts.

–

There's something he hasn't really talked about with Sam, something Sam wouldn't know to think about because he didn't grow up in the life, but the Winchester name used to really mean something _._ There was a time, before Dad died, before he met Benny, when _Dean's_ name meant something.

Don't get him wrong, he'd die for Benny. Dude has saved his life more than once, so fuck anyone who says anything. Doesn't mean he doesn't notice the talk, hear the casual dismissals – _Dean Winchester, kid went soft after his old man kicked it. Damn shame._ It puts his back against the wall, the idea that he's just some fuck up disappointment.

But that's all going to change.

Dean saw the fight with the shifter, trained eyes intent despite the distraction inherent in there being two Sams wrestling around. It's probably fucked up, but he liked what he saw. Sam can take a hit without losing focus, and he doesn't hesitate before going in for a kill.

And maybe Sam's a little shook up right now, a little lost, but when he gets over that, gets his sea legs back, he's is going to be one dangerous motherfucker. Dean can't wait.

The whole of the hunting world is gonna know to watch out for the Winchester brothers.

–        

He loads Sam's arms up with taco-laden paper trays, figures trying to walk without spilling pico de gallo and sour cream down the front of his shirt will give him something to focus on other than brooding. Judging by the faintly irritated look Sam gives him, he figured right.

They take their haul to a nearby park, this small spit of crabgrass and trees next to the narrow river that cuts through town. There's even a gaggle of kids down by the bank, splashing around in the water. See? Wholesome. Family-like.

Dean sits with his back against a tree trunk and chews his way through his share of the tacos while studying his brother.

Sam is quiet as he picks through his food, large hands making the tacos look bite-sized. There's a faint tension still shaping the lines of his face. Dean thinks he should say something, but he doesn't know what it's going to be until he's already started.   

“You know, my first real hunt. Few months after Nebraska.” He catches the way Sam looks up, eyes already sharpened a little with interest, and clears his throat awkwardly before forging ahead. He's not used to telling these kinds of stories. John had known all of them, and Benny just got hung up on all the wrong details. “We were in Wyoming. I don't think Dad was even looking for it, but the case kinda just fell into his lap. And after – everything. He didn't like leaving me on my own. So I, uh, I went along.”               

He licks salsa off his thumb and shakes his head. “I'd begged for fucking _years_ to be allowed in on a case, so I shoulda been stoked. And I was, I guess, after. But I remember staring at the black dog, so worried I was going to screw it up like I had before.”

“Before?” Sam asks, voice a little rough. It's the first word he's spoken in more than an hour.    

Not anything Dean wants to get into. He shrugs. “Once, in Wisconsin, you were – I don't know, five? A monster got into our motel room. I froze up.” Oh this'll be sure to comfort him, Dean thinks, tell him about when you fucked up and almost got him _killed_. “Dad scared it off, you were fine. But we missed the kill.”

Sam looks like he wants to ask more, but in the end all he says is, “But everything worked out in Wyoming? You got the black dog.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I got it.” Dean shuffles around and drops down on his back so he's staring at the tree canopy instead of at Sam. “Didn't even hesitate. Dad let me have some of his whiskey, after.”

He spent a long time back then wondering why it had suddenly been so simple. Eventually came to the kinda shitty conclusion that it was because Sam hadn't been there. Somehow he could pull the trigger when he didn't have to worry about seeing his kid brother’s face afterwards.

“Hunting's never _easy_ , exactly, but it's clean. Killing all the freaks and evil sons of bitches out there, it's the only thing that's ever felt right. And I never questioned it, never even thought to until you showed up again.” Dean smirks faintly and glances up at him. “You and your crazy talk about arresting skinwalkers and telling people the truth.”

“I guess I was wrong about that,” Sam says, eyes on the kids swimming in the river. “I don't ever want anyone else to have to feel this way.”

Dean should probably heed the pang of regret he feels at those words, but after a moment he just says easily, “Nah. You're just still getting used to all this. You'll be arguing with me about it again in no time, just you wait. I don't think that part of you can be kept quiet.”

For some reason, this doesn't seem to comfort Sam. They lapse back into quiet. Dean thinks he really shouldn't have to struggle this much to make his point that Sam is naturally suited to the hunting life.

“Okay,” he says, switching tack. “I knew this guy, Ritchie. Middle of a succubus hunt in Brooklyn, guy gets it into his head that if he might be able to withstand the succubus's influence if he just pops enough Viagra.”

“Jesus,” the words slips out of Sam like he can't help it.

When Dean looks at him, he's staring at Dean incredulously. His lips look like they want to smile, just need a little encouragement. So Dean grins at him. Call and response, the smile emerges.

“You ever want to see something that looks painful, it's a man fighting for his life with a hard on that won't quit. And see, Sammy, that's my point.”

“There’s a point to this story?” Sam asks, amusement thick in his voice.

Dean levers himself up onto one elbow so he can look at him frankly. “For every hunter that knows his shit, there are three who bite it in their first six months. There are _a lot_ of dumb motherfuckers out there, Sam. Hell, any day now I expect to hear Garth's gone and got himself made into a werewolf's chewtoy.”

“Werewolves,” Sam says, like he's testing the word out. Dean thinks he's going to pull the old disbelief card, but then he asks thoughtfully, “Are we talking Michael J Fox or actual wolves?”

“Neither. Claws and teeth and one hell of a temper, but that's about it.”

Sam makes a sound that might be disappointment, and Dean grins again, hard. He’s right about this, he knows he is.

“You're not dumb,” Sam says abruptly, and Dean blinks. Grin fading, he angles a curious look up at him. Sam's chewing his lip, eyes narrowed and looking right back.

“Don't know about that,” he says lightly. “I've had _a lot_ of head injuries.” When Sam doesn't roll his eyes or even slightly smile, he nudges him. “Hey. You're not getting serious on me again, are you? Because there are only so many times in a day I can deal with that.”

He's joking, but Sam looks away and mutters, “Sorry, can't help it. I just don't know what's going to happen. You, me, us. This life. It seems – ” He cuts off with a shrug.

Dean gets to his feet. “I keep telling you, Sam,” he says, offering his brother a hand up. “You don't even know. You and me, we're going to be great.”

—

He can't put it off forever, so they head back to the hotel.

It's still weird to walk in and see two beds. He's not used to getting a double. Benny sleeps during the day when he's around and he doesn't trust any other hunter enough to share a room. So the second duffle, the extra debris in the bathroom and laptop on the corner table, and of course, _Sam_.

Sam always a few feet away, sometimes a stranger, this tall unknowable presence one moment and the next the brother that disappeared fourteen years ago.

They should head North for a while. Hit up the Rockies, maybe swing by Bobby's. He thinks Sam will get a kick out of Bobby's library. He pictures long afternoons buried in some engine or another out back while his brother does the same to the lore books, followed by evenings kicked back on the porch with a couple beers. Something strange and dangerously content grows in his chest at the image.

When he's ever bothered to look towards the future, it’s always been short term. Abstract ideas, like lobster season in Maine or which month to swing through Michigan to hook up with that hot yoga instructor. A wash of pit stops and seasonal specials, time blurring by until the day he's a second too slow with his shotgun. It hadn't seemed a bad way to live, not when so many people out there trudge on with their ties and stocks or whatever the fuck people with 9-to-5s care about.

But Sam disrupts all that, plucks him from his mobius strip highway and sets him back down with a place to go and an endgame in mind.

He can do this. He can have this. He's just been missing the essential piece.

First thing's first, though; he needs to take care of Sam. Anybody looking at him right now would never guess that he's in possession of a big brother.

Dean fetches a bucket of ice for Sam's bruises, never mind it's probably too late to do much good. He plugs Sam's fancy-ass blackberry into a charger because it's been dead for at least a day.

When Sam exits the bathroom, he down to just his jeans and t-shirt. It’s still strange to see him like this, because without his layers he suddenly looks — well, looks his age. Twenty-two, lanky and still filling out.

He meets Dean’s eyes with a crack of sudden tension, but Dean doesn’t let any of that show on his face. He puts hands on Sam’s shoulders, palm slotting in natural against the curve of his joints, and pushes him down on the bed.

He folds easily, not looking away. He lies back and Dean follows him down — for second he hovers, caught out unintentionally with his arms bracketing Sam, studying the dark of his hair against the pillow, the heavy fall of his eyelids belying the way his eyes are very much awake and intent on him.

Dean gets a move on and lowers himself so they’re lying side-by-side. He props himself up on one elbow, and it’s almost like how they were lying in that trunk down in Florida.

“What were you hunting in Glades?” Sam asks quietly, like his thoughts have been following the same line of thought.

So Dean tells him a ghost story. Sam turns his head on the pillow and watches him as he talks.     

The sun outside is at just the right angle to hit the windows full blast, and the room is filled with a drowsy sort of heat. It makes Dean feel weighted, brings out a light sweat that he can feel at the small of his back and between his fingers.

He’s just getting to the good part, when he’d been trapped behind a grain-thin salt line in the repair shop with a hysterical asthmatic guard, when Sam makes his move.

He turns and presses his face into Dean’s neck, and it cuts off his words better than a garrote. Dean holds very still. Swallows and feels the way Sam noses into the motion.

“ _Jesus_ , Sam,” He says, barely recognizing his own voice.

“Please,” is all Sam says, giving a subtle shiver Dean can feel all down his side. “ _Dean_. Please.”

After a moment of holding so still a muscle should’ve seized, Dean rolls up and over with an economical flex of motion. He’s already half hard, but he doesn’t press down. He looks at Sam, wonders what he thinks he sees when he looks back, and then shuts his eyes at a sudden wave of vertigo. The layers here – this body in front of him, attractive and solid; Sam and all that name contains. It’s almost more than he can take.

They've kissed twice now, both instigated by Sam, because Dean is a goddamn gentleman with this type of shit. But he's had a lot of time to think about those kisses, wonder at the force of them, and he figures Sam's m.o. is maybe a lot like his mind – demanding, swift, take no prisoners.

Dean's all about fast and fun, but that's not what Sam needs right now. He wonders if he even knows it, if anyone’s ever taught him properly. He kisses like a starved stray. Dean needs to show him he's got a home.

He opens his eyes when he lowers his head, because more than anything, he wants to see his brother.


	22. Chapter 22

**Interlude IV**

 

It’s dark out when Sam wakes up to an insistent beep in the corner of the room. It’s the same noise he's been primed to respond to even in the deepest of sleep, because the message or call on the other end of the line is most often work. And Sam doesn't ignore work.

The phone is the only source of light in the room, a beacon that is almost hypnotic.

Dean has rolled away in his sleep. Shirt rucked up, legs splayed because he's probably not used to sharing a bed, all of it equalling a lot of smooth, warm skin on display. Sam looks him over for a few moments before the faint pulse of light in the corner draws his eyes once more.

It's almost like he's sleepwalking, the way he gets up and pads over to the phone. He knows what's waiting for him, knows that it won't be good when he reads _2 voicemails_ on the screen. And maybe the shroud of sleep is still clinging to him. Maybe he's feeling invincible with his brother just a few feet away. Maybe he's just never been able to leave well enough the fuck alone.

He hits the right buttons and raises the phone to his ear.

Victor’s voice is almost a physical shock, even though he’s expecting it. It doesn’t belong to this room, this part of his life.

_Sam, I'm doing this as a courtesy, so you better get back to me. I looked into your records. I know who you are. You — you must know how this all looks. If you don't want me assuming you helped your brother escape Glades, you call me back immediately._

And then, because he’d been a little busy killing a shapeshifter and hadn’t called back, the second voicemail:

 _Given your lack of a response, I guess I should be addressing Sam Winchester now._ (And there’s strange frisson that goes down his spine at hearing that name, because it's the first time he’s heard it in six years.) _We saw the motel room in Kansas City, saw the blood stains on the carpet. Well how about this, Sam: I’m not just gonna put an APB out on your ass, I'm gonna make sure no part of your pretend life is left intact. We'll have a watch put on Jessica Moore, you'll never step within a quarter mile of her again. And associating with a known serial killer? Well, that's not gonna look too good for her law career. She wasn't by any chance planning on working for a DA's office, was she?_

—

He steals a truck, a rusted white Chevy Silverado with a _For Sale, $950_ placard under the windshield wiper. He doesn’t turn on the radio or think of much of anything as he drives the hour to the same darkened rest stop he’d been in just the day before, scraping blood from under his fingernails.

Victor is alone, just like he said he’d be. He stands in the yellowed interior of the restroom, dressed casual except for the FBI windbreaker. A gun rests on the steel counter running along the underside of the mirror.

Sam steps forward from the doorway with his hands out and up. He’s only in a T-shirt and sneakers, a deliberate choice because he knows he looks younger this way and he needs to work every advantage he can.

It’s a strange moment, because Victor has never really seen him like this, just a rumpled twenty-something with hair in his eyes. Sam had always wanted to be seen like an adult, an _equal_ , and had worked hard to present himself accordingly on their dates.

They look at each other for a long moment, and then Victor shakes his head. “So what are you supposed to be, Sam, some kind of deep cover mole? Is this the Departed with Satanists?”

“He's not – ” Sam starts to say, and bites his tongue.

Victor raises his eyebrows. “Well, I look forward to reading just what _he_ is. On federal stationary, in triplicate.”

Sam just nods, carefully. He keeps his face open and non confrontational.  

“Why don’t you begin at the beginning — did you help him escape from Glades?”

“I didn’t know who he was then,” Sam says honestly. “I didn’t get his name until the next day, when the news reports came in.” He tells Victor the whole story, mostly the truth, from the night in the trunk up through West Virginia. Omits seeing him in Morganville, makes it sound like he tracked him to Kansas City and met him there. Witnessed the fight in the hotel and got dumped without any of his possessions on the side of the road. Didn’t find someone to lend him a charger until a few hours ago.

Victor’s voice doesn’t reveal any emotion, whether he is buying what Sam’s selling or not. “It's all a hell of a coincidence, Sam."

"Yeah, you're telling me," he mutters.

"Why didn’t you come forward in the beginning? You have to know how this looks.”

“I know I should have,” Sam says quickly. “But — I was angry. I didn’t want anyone getting in my way.” He lets some of those endless reserves of anger color his voice, and it cracks a little. “They abandoned me on Christmas when I was _eight_. I wanted answers.”

Victor mulls that over for a second. Finally he asks Sam:

“Well. You get them?”

Sam thinks of grins across the front seat of the Impala with the Stones on full blast, of Dean’s mouth and hands moving worshipfully down his body. Of not feeling lonely for the first time in years.

“Yeah,” he says. “I did.”

—

In short order he’s sitting in the passenger seat of Victor’s bureau rental, tracing the scabs on his split knuckles and staring out into the darkness of the passing highway.

“You know,” Victor says. “After that Houdini act he pulled in Glades, I did a lot of background work on Dean and your father. It’s one messed up story, real paramilitary survivalist shit. Frankly, you were lucky to be put in foster care.”

Sam grits his teeth so hard he risks Victor hearing the grinding noise. He doesn’t reply.

“You look like you’ve had a rough few days,” Victor says next, and this time Sam looks over, because his voice has gone a little soft. He meets his dark eyes, but what they contain isn’t attraction or fondness but pity. He's talking to Sam like he's a vic.

He glances down to where Sam’s throat is thoroughly bruised from the shifter’s grip. “He do that to you?”

Sam doesn’t want to think of his brother right now. If he does, he’s going to picture Dean waking up alone in that hotel room, well-exercised lips curling up in a smile before he reaches across the mattress and finds only a rumpled pillow. He going to picture the look on Dean’s face when he reads Sam’s text, a text he has yet to compose because he just — _can’t_.

“It’s nothing,” Sam says. “I’m fine.”


	23. Chapter 23

**Part VI**

 

**June**

Type: Text message  
From: D  
Received: Jun 25, 7:14 PM

_local boy just tried to pull me over for speeding_

  


Type: Text message  
From: sammy   
Received: Jun 25, 7:16 PM

_Tried?_

  


Type: Text message  
From: D  
Received: Jun 25, 7:17 PM

_well dude i wasn't about to let him_

  


Type: Text message  
From: sammy  
Received: Jun 25, 7:20 PM

_If you get arrested because of a routine traffic stop, I will never let you live it down._

  


Type: Text message  
From: D   
Received: Jun 25, 7:21 PM

_what are you gonna do, give me shit during prison visiting hours?_

  


Type: Text message  
From: sammy   
Received: Jun 25, 7:34 PM

_Or I'll break you out and kick your ass for being so stupid._

  


Type: Text message  
From: D  
Received: Jun 25, 8:01 PM

_like you could_

**July**

Type: Text message  
From: D  
Received: Jul 4, 9:11 PM

_I-90 west of billings fireworks going off on both sides of the road_

  


Type: Text message  
From: D  
Received: Jul 4, 9:26 PM

_sucks dad never let us get fireworks._

  


Type: Text message  
From: sammy   
Received: Jul 4, 9:29 PM

_Where would we even have fired them off?_

  


Type: Text message  
From: D  
Received: Jul 4, 9:30 PM

_do you have any idea how many empty fields there are in america_

  


Type: Text message  
From: sammy  
Received: Jul 4, 9:33 PM

_Sounds like a fire hazard._

  


Type: Text message  
From: D  
Received: Jul 4, 9:34 PM

_such a buzzkill sammy_

  


Type: Text message  
From: sammy  
Received: Jul 4, 9:36 PM

_Speaking of which, are you texting and driving right now?_

  


–

  


Type: Text message  
From: VAMPIRATE  
Received: Jul 18, 3:04 AM

THAT WAS THE DUMBEST THING IVE SEEN YOU DO AND IVE SEEN YOU DO A LOT OF DUMB THINGS.

  


Type: Text message  
From: sammy  
Received: Jul 21 2:19 PM

_I don't know why you're not picking up, but I just checked your Visa and I really need an explanation as to why the fuck there is a charge from a Sacred Heart Hospital in Eau Claire Wisconsin._

  


Type: Text message  
From: sammy  
Received: Jul 21, 4:38 PM

_dean i swear to god._

  


Type: Text message  
From: D  
Received: Jul 22, 12:54 PM

_im fine_

  


**August**

Type: Text message  
From: D  
Received: Aug 12, 1:23 AM

_catch any bad guys recently sammy?_

  


Type: Text message  
From: D  
Received: Aug 12, 1:25 AM

_what do federal marshals even do_

  


Type: Text message  
From: D  
Received: Aug 12, 1:31 AM

_this nice lady at the bar thinks you do prisoner transport_

  


Type: Text message  
From: D  
Received: Aug 12, 1:34 AM

_she thinks im texting my bf. do i look gay to you man?_

  


Type: Text message  
From: D  
Received: Aug 12, 1:40 AM

_toldd her your my brother she gave me a weird look_

  


Type: Text message  
From: D  
Received: Aug 12, 1:42 AM

_if i get arrested, would you be the one to drive me to prison_

  


Type: Text message  
To: sammy  
Draft

_because i dont think that would be so bad_

  


**September**

  


Type: Text message  
From: sammy  
Received: Sep 8, 4:29 PM

_Just saw an Impala parked near the office at lunch. Don't know what year, but it looked similar, except it was blue. Front end was a little different._

  


Type: Text message  
From: D  
Received: Sep 8, 4:32 PM

_are you cheating on my baby?_

  


Type: Text message  
From: sammy  
Received: Sep 8, 4:35 PM

_You are such a freak._

  


Type: Text message  
From: D  
Received: Sep 8, 4:38 PM

_takes one to know one_

  


Type: Text message  
From: D   
Received: Sep 8, 4:39 PM

_but seriously describe the hood to me i wanna see if i can guess the year_

  


–

  


Type: Text message  
From: D   
Received: Sep 30, 8:14 PM

_been a little quiet something up?_

  


Type: Text message  
From: sammy   
Received: Sep 30, 8:18 PM

_Just tired. Weird dreams._

  


Type: Text message  
From: sammy   
Received: Sep 30, 8:18 PM

_don't make a joke about tucking me in_

  


_T_ ype: Text message  
From: D   
Received: Sep 30, 8:20 PM

_dude like i would_

**October**

  


A fat gob of toothpaste breaks free and lands on his tie. Sam curses around his toothbrush and spits into the sink. He thinks of having to choose another one to match his suit jacket, and then immediately follows up that thought with wondering if he really needs to wear a tie to this stupid party or even go at all.

“Sam you're not seriously wearing that, are you?” Jess asks, appearing in the doorway. In an effortless rejection of stereotypes about women, she is already dressed and ready to leave while he is still debating with himself over clothing.

“Well, not anymore,” he says, yanking the tie from around his neck. “There's toothpaste on it.”

He catches sight of her incredulous stare in the mirror and pauses. “What?”

“I was talking about the shoulder holster.” She points helpfully. “The one with the gun in it? Do you really need to attend this party armed?”

He shrugs under the comfortable weight of the holster. He hasn't gone out without it since June. “I don't know, have you seen the type of people Brady's been socializing with? I might need an exit strategy.”

“And this strategy includes possibly shooting them?”

“Or myself. You know, whatever works.”

He slips past her through the door and tosses the tie into the laundry basket in the corner of his bedroom. Then he stands in front of his tie drawer, hands on hips. He stares down at the array of colors and wonders when he acquired them all.

If he was living out of a duffle bag, he wouldn't have to keep more than one or two.

The stupidity of the thought spurs him to snatch one up at random. He throws it around his upturned collar and knots it in a few brisk, irritated movements.

“Wow, this can't just be about the party,” Jess says, folding her arms. “What is up with you?”

He debates the merits of silence for a moment, but there is a tension headache starting to make itself known in his temples and he's just. Tired.

He sighs and sits on the edge of his bed. Knuckles his eyes and mutters, “Sorry. Got a postcard from Dean today.”

He's being stupid. It's not like the card even really said anything; it was just a picture of a Mardi Gras celebration on Bourbon Street, and on the back Dean had scrawled _drinks were overpriced but you can't beat the gumbo._

He hadn't signed it, but the handwriting was terrible and, anyway, there was no one else who would be sending him postcards.

Sam had spent five minutes staring at the words, a pit opening up in his stomach at the reminder that his brother was out there, driving alone all around the country while Sam trudged repetitively along his four-point route: gym, work, store, home.

He never realized before how much he hates his apartment.

The mattress dips a little as Jess sits beside him. He can't look at her, knows what he'll see if he does: that unique mix of restrained disapproval, worry, and pity. He doesn't want any of it.

The story he'd told her was mostly the same one he gave Victor. He didn't play up Dean's villainy as much. There was no real need, and Jess knows him well enough to be suspicious at his bald torment over a criminal who'd abandoned him as a child. He'd considered briefly telling her the truth – well, part of the truth, the _monsters exist_ truth, not the _and I'm one of them_ truth. In the end he decided against it. He can protect her. That's what matters.

She puts a hand on his arm and he sags towards her, a little. She sighs.

“Sam, I know the likelihood of you actually listening to me is, like, right up there with Bush and Cheney being charged for war crimes, but it's been months and this pining – ”

“I'm not _pining_ – ”

“It's not healthy,” she says firmly. “You haven't been sleeping. From the looks of things you're probably not eating properly. And Angela from your office says you haven't been engaged at work – ”

He leans back and gives her a look. “Why have you been talking to _Angela_ from my _office_?”

“She was a speaker at this symposium on campus last week – oh, and remind me to talk to you about that later, because there was some really interesting ideas thrown around for reforming municipal justice systems. But back to my point: you're making me feel like a worried mother, and I might not be able to forgive that.”

“I didn't ask you to worry,” is all he says when she has finished.

Frustration crosses her face. She gets to her feet, likely for the express purpose of being able to look down at him.

“You realize it's not exactly a choice, right? You're my best friend.” When he just stares mutely up at her, she throws her hands into the air and walks back to the door. She says over her shoulder, “So get over yourself.”

–

If there is one thing that foster care and high society events have in common, it's that you quickly learn how to lie through your teeth and pretend everything in your life isn't a complete fucking shambles.

Sam smiles and extends his hand. “Hey, man. Happy birthday.”

Brady knocks his hand aside and throws his arms around his shoulders in a surprisingly tight embrace. “Sam! Feel like I haven't seen you in forever, man, how you been?”

Brady's penthouse apartment is a glittering beacon of conspicuous consumption. Sam looks around at his minimalist furniture and fixtures and tries not to feel distinctly out of place. He knows it's not rational, this instinctive recoil from luxury, knows it's probably tied up wanting to be hundreds of miles away in a vehicle with no airbags. So he grins through it and tries not to let the lift of his mouth turn into a snarl.

Once they've drawn back from each other, Sam says, “Been busy. Trying to work my way towards a transfer to Fugitive Operations.”

Brady's eyebrows rise. “Does that pay better?”

“Probably not, but I wouldn't be spending so much time delivering paperwork to prisons.”

Brady laughs like Sam just made a joke and slaps him on the back. A couple of people nearby look at Sam curiously, and he thinks maybe he should avoid the shop talk. Trouble is, that leaves him with very few topics to reach for. He'd fallen out of practice at small talk after college.

“How's work?” He asks Brady. “You said you got that promotion. What was it again?”

“Project manager for a new push in the mid-Atlantic region,” Brady says. “I think if I do a decent job, I have a fair shot at making vice president of distribution in a few years.”

Sam nods gamely. He doesn't know what to say.

Brady grins at him anyway, like he finds his obvious disinterest amusing. He glances around once and then puts a hand on Sam's back and leads him a few feet away from the crowd.

Once they're out of earshot, Brady's face turns more serious. “Sam, I was actually hoping to ask you for a favor.”

“I can't help you break the law,” Sam says automatically. He's mostly joking, but the memory of how Brady acted near the end of Stanford is fresh in his mind.

Brady flashes another perfect white grin at him. “It's nothing like that. No, I – ” He glances back at the crowd again, a wrinkle between his eyebrows. “I actually think something weird might be going on in my office. Something, you know. Not aboveboard.” He looks at Sam meaningfully.

Sam shoves his hands in his pockets. “You know I'm not a cop,” he begins to say, but Brady cuts him off with a wave of his hand.

“I know, I know you're not. But you know more about the law than I do, and I trust your instincts. I was just hoping to get your read on things.”

“Can you be more specific? I mean, what exactly are we talking about here?”

But Brady just shakes his head. “I can't talk about it here, man. There isn't any time and I have a party to host. But maybe you could come by my office after work Monday? I'll tell you all about it then.”

Nonplussed, Sam can't do anything but agree. Brady hugs him once more – Sam doesn't remember them hugging this much in college, but maybe it's some kind of a corporate synergy thing? – and then returns to his other guests. Left alone again, Sam looks around for Jess.

He eventually finds her arguing about patent law with some lower level pharmaceutical executive whose eyes keep drifting down to her cleavage. Sam feels no qualms about dragging her away. He snatches up two flutes of some pale wine and uses one to lure her out onto the balcony.

“I see at least you're having fun,” he says, handing her a glass.

She blows a lock of hair out of her face and take a healthy drink. When she's lowered the glass, she gives him a long look.

“Are you using me right now to avoid the other guests?” She asks. He lifts a single shoulder and then bites back a smile when she immediately swats it.

They watch the view of the city in silence for a few minutes. The air is cool as it settles into an autumn night. Before long, much of the country will be blanketed by snow, the roads criss-crossing it covered in ice and salt that will no doubt make Dean curse about the Impala's undercarriage. Sam vaguely recalls his father being almost obsessive with washing the car during the winter. He is sure Dean is the same, if not worse.

Jess breaks into his thoughts. “You know, if you hadn't broken up with Victor, you'd have another person to talk to at this party. That's one of the main benefits of having a boyfriend.”

He glances sidelong at her leaning over the railing. “You never even liked Victor. Now you're telling me we should still be dating?”

She makes a slight face. “Well, you don't seem any happier single. I don't know. I thought maybe I misjudged the situation. I mean, you seem like you're missing him?”

Sam's barely given Victor a thought outside the regular check-ins he'd agreed to make since returning east. Their break up had almost been an afterthought. Sam had been so distracted by thoughts of Dean and needing to keep him as far away from the FBI as possible, he'd almost missed Victor saying, “We're over, aren't we?”

“It's been a crazy month,” Sam had replied, after too long a pause.

Victor had just shaken his head incredulously. “Jesus, Sam.”

Sam tells Jess now, “I'm not missing Victor. I'm not missing anyone. I'm just – stuck in rut, I think. I don't know.”

Jess makes a sympathetic face and nudges her shoulder against his. “Well, you know you can always come to me if you need anything, right?” She pauses and then adds, “Unless it's during finals. God, please don't have a personal crisis during finals.”

He smiles at her. “Promise.”

They turn back to the view and lapse once more into a companionable silence. The bright party swings on loudly at their backs, but Sam doesn't think he'll have a desire to rejoin it anytime soon.

–

That night, he has the dream again.

Dean's head is thrown back and he's screaming. Some unseen force rips into his chest, and blood is spraying up, so thick on the air Sam can taste it in the back of his throat. He's shouting for Dean, trying to get to him, but he's up against a wall and unable to move his limbs. Something is keeping him back, keeping him away from his brother.

“ _Sam!”_

Sam's eyes snap open and he jerks out of bed. In a second he's ducked behind the mattress and tracking his gun around the darkened room. It takes several seconds to realize that he is alone, covered in sweat and waving his loaded weapon around like a headcase.

He groans and lets the gun drop down into the crumpled bedsheets. He scrubs a hand back through his hair and rubs his temples. His head is hurting again, a deep abiding throb. He remembers, too late, that he's out of aspirin and curses under his breath.

He gets up and goes into the bathroom anyway. Splashes water on his face and then stares bleakly at the mirror.

Is it guilt, he wonders. Is the weight of what he asked Dean for back in Kansas somehow warping itself and producing these nightmares? He doesn't think that's it – try as he might, he can't bring himself to feel regret. And he wonders what it says, what kind of person he is, that the guilt he feels is not for sleeping with his brother, but for not still being out on the road with him.

Was he always like this?

Maybe he's not even the real thing; maybe little Sam Winchester got snatched from his bed back in 1991 and replaced with something else, just like in the old faerie stories. That might explain why Sam doesn't fit in anywhere, why he walks around feeling like an imposter. The only thing it doesn't explain is his undeniable connection to Dean.

He shuts his eyes and turns away from the face in the mirror.

Back in his bedroom, his phone screen is glowing on the bedside table. He squares away his gun and then hesitates before unlocking his phone. As he reads the message, he feels his shoulders slump a little.

  


Type: Text message  
From: D  
Received: Oct 18, 2:22 AM

_back on the road. caught wind of two murders, probably a spirit. adios, lousiana_

  


He replies before he can think twice, fingers swiftly moving over the keypad.

  


Type: Text message  
To: D  
Sent: Oct 18, 2:31 AM

_Why not sleep and drive out in the morning?_

  


And then he waits on the edge of his bed, phone in hand like a heartsick fool. He doesn't have to wait long.

  


Type: Text message  
From: D  
Received: Oct 18, 2:32 AM

_sleep is for the weak.drives like this is what Night Moves is for._

 


	24. Chapter 24

The last thing Sam expects to see when he arrives at Brady's downtown office building the next day is a full assemblage of squad cars and emergency vehicles. They are parked in a semicircle near the front entrance of the high rise, and an officer is putting up cordon tape to keep curious bystanders out of the way.

Unease and superstition are already pricking at him as he walks up. He's been waiting on edge for months, wondering when he would next see a hint of a hunt. This could be normal. It's probably normal. But.

He taps his badge pointedly at the officer manning the line. He's worn it on his belt since he got back, figuring it might help him remember what he is supposed to be if it was always visible.

He slips into the glossy building. From there all he has to do is follow the uniformed foot traffic and noise. It leads him into an elevator and up to the seventeenth floor, which makes his unease only grow; Brady's office was on seventeen.

The elevator opens on a floor crowded with forensic types in masks and gloves and a gaggle of office workers ranging from terrified to distraught. His first impulse is to head directly to Brady's office and make sure he is unharmed, but he quickly spies him in one of the crowds, talking to a woman who seems to cry harder with every word out of his mouth.

Sam decides to let him comfort his coworker for the moment. Morbid curiosity has him stopping the first likely-looking detective in a suit. The man glances down to his belt and for some reason looks almost impatient.

Sam keeps his introduction brief and gets to the point. “What can you tell me about the situation?”

“Vic was working late in his office. No one else was around to witness the attack. If you've seen the body, you don't need me to tell you the killer is a fucking animal.” Someone calls from across the room, and the detective's head turns. He signals something and turns back to Sam. “Look, I've already told everything to the other marshal. You can get it from him. Though fuck knows why you guys are putting your noses in this.” This last is said in a distracted mutter as he turns away, Sam already mostly forgotten.

“The other marshal?” Sam echoes.

He doesn't even think of it, the possibility, but when he walks onto the crime scene, there Dean stands. And he's – he's wearing a suit.

It's ridiculous that out of everything – there's a whole lot of crimson in his peripheral vision, and the room stinks of copper and meat – the suit is what Sam's mind stumbles on. But he can't help it; it's this ill-fitting ugly dark brown with material too thick for the season. When Sam approaches, he doesn't think he imagines that it smells faintly of the thrift store rack Dean likely fished it out of earlier that morning.

He doesn't say anything for a moment, too busy taking in the slight differences in Dean's profile. His skin still has its summer tan, though Sam thinks if he got a closer look, it would be mostly made up of freckles. Less appealing is the dark smudges under his eyes and the grim set of his mouth as he looks over the carnage. In Kansas, Dean couldn't seem to stop smiling.

“So what is it today?” Sam asks, his voice sounding funny even to his own ears. “Deputy Page or Plant?”

Dean jerks around and stares, but only for a second. The next moment he's seemingly recovered his cool and bounces his eyebrows. “Hagar. Can't just stick to one band, man. Too predictable.”

“Right, of course. Wouldn't want to be too conspicuous.” Sam looks away on a smile.

He shouldn't be smiling, because this – this is reckless. So fucking stupid. He'd told Dean to avoid the entire east coast for the time being, and here he is within spitting distance of Victor. But that also means he's within arm's reach of Sam.

“It's good to see you.” The words are out of his mouth before he can stop them. He looks back at Dean in time to see his cocky grin fade into something a little smaller, a little more real.

“Yeah,” is all Dean says.

They stare at each other for a long moment and then, by unspoken mutual agreement, they break eye contact and clear their throats. Dean rubs the back of his neck and chews his lip.

“Nice suit, by the way.” Dean says, waving at said suit before glancing down to his own rumpled affair. The expression on his face suggests he notices the disparity but can't put a finger on the reason for it.

Sam shoots his cuffs demonstratively, playing it up like he's a rich douche (and compared to Dean, he might as well be). He determinedly ignores how Dean's eyes darken a little at the move. “Thanks. I used to have a nicer one, but I had to get rid of it.”

Dean cottons on immediately. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, it smelled pretty bad, mud and I don't even want to know what else. Took it to the dry cleaners, but then I was out of town for awhile. By the time I got back, it was long gone.”

Dean nods like he's commiserating, but the way his eyes are fixed on Sam's with an unnerving intensity makes Sam think he's not really paying attention. Sam's voice fades out, dumb words about the dry cleaners stumbling to a halt.

“How far are we going to go with this, Sam?” He asks quietly.

Sam throws a glance around at the milling forensics team. “ _Don't_ – not yet, okay? Don't say anything yet. We'll talk. Later.” He throws about for something to say, and is almost grateful when he remembers the dead body in the room. “How about you tell me about the case. You think this is one of yours?”

“One of mine,” Dean says, something almost bitter in his tone. But he accepts the change of topic. “Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Security has no record of anyone else entering the building. Surveillance doesn't show anyone in the elevators or stairs, but the tape fritzed out around the time of the attack. They're still collecting alibis for the coworkers, but – fuck. I don't think anything human did this. Look at him. ”

And, for the first time since walking onto the crime scene, Sam looks.

“Jesus,” he says involuntarily.

It is as if someone chiseled into the man's breastbone and then gripped both sides and pried apart his ribs like one would open a packet of chips. Blood is everywhere in copious amounts – on the walls, the ceiling, and so much on the floor it looks like it's completely saturated the carpet.

“Heart's missing too,” Dean says, tone like shop talk.

After a moment, the shock starts to wear off, and Sam cocks his head to the side.

“Do you think that part looks a little strange,” he asks Dean, pointing to a section of blood spray a few feet away from the body.

“The man's spleen is serving as a paperweight on his desk right now, I think that's pretty strange,” Dean says, but after a moment he squints harder at where Sam pointed. He steps closer and Sam has no choice but to follow along, nose wrinkling at the overpowering smell.

Dean stares down at carpet. Sam had only noticed it because it didn't follow the rest of blood – that is, it was a fairly discrete spattering, and he couldn't imagine what would have produced it except maybe the weapon dripping afterwards.

“Do you have any duct tape?” Dean asks, distracted.

“Why would I have duct tape?”

Dean doesn't answer, looking instead around the room, like he might find a spare roll lying in plain sight in this mid-level executive's office. Then he walked out of the room without another word.

Sam itches slightly at being ignored, but he suppresses the feeling.

Dean returns quickly, holding a slim roll of masking tape. Without any more warning, he starts stripping pieces off the roll and sticking them over the blood spray.

“Dude,” Sam whispers urgently. “This is a crime scene, you can't just – ”

“What in the _hell_ do you think you're doing?” a woman demands as she steps up. She's in a full scrub suit and doesn't remove her mask while speaking, so all Sam can see are a pair of livid eyes.

“Relax,” Dean says in a casually dismissive tone that Sam remembers with acute chagrin from their childhood. “Your people already photographed this part.”

“But we haven't taken samples yet, you neanderthal. And you – you're not even wearing fucking _gloves,_ you'll contaminate _everything_ – ”

Dean finishes his fucked up game of connect the dots and stands again. Ignoring the impending coronary event next to him, he takes out his phone and snaps a photo at the swirling pattern he's created. He frowns at it.

“Okay, we're done here,” Sam says. He puts a hand on Dean's shoulder and, ignoring the way it immediately tenses under his hand, steers him from the room. The medical examiner yells after them, threatening to call their supervisor. Sam really hopes she didn't catch his badge number.

He's making a beeline for the elevators when Brady calls out his name. Sam almost startles; he'd completely forgotten why he'd come here in the first place.

He and Dean turn as one as Brady strides up to them through the crowd of law enforcement. Sam opens his mouth to – he doesn't know. Introduce Brady, maybe make an excuse for why he has to leave immediately? He's taken off guard when Brady once again pulls him in for a hug.

He feels rather than sees Dean stiffen at his side. Who knows what this looks like to him. Brady's all slick suit and glossy hair, a picture of everything Dean is not and probably despises. The kind of person he'd probably pin as a mark for hustling at pool.

Brady draws back finally. “I'm glad you're here – this is all so crazy.”

“Did you know him well?” Sam asks, for want of anything else to say. He's intensely aware of Dean beside him.

“Well, that's the thing.” Brady runs a hand through his hair, somehow leaving it more or less in the same perfect state when he's done. “Hank was the guy I wanted to talk to you about. I thought he was doing some shady things with the latest trial results for a new line of cold medicine, and – ” He breaks off, seemingly suddenly noticing Dean. “I'm sorry, I haven't even – is this your partner?”

Before Sam can come up with an excuse or better lie, Dean is shouldering forward, hand outstretched. “Deputy Marshal Hagar.”

They shake hands; Sam watches with weary resignation as Dean smiles and tries to break Brady's fingers. Brady merely smiles back, a shadow of amusement lingering around his eyes.

“And here I thought Sam only worked solo,” he comments. His eyes flick up and down Dean's body, that terrible suit, and the smile widens.

“Yeah, well,” Dean shrugs in a painful imitation of casual. “Not anymore he doesn't.”

Fucking perfect. Sam breaks in, “Brady, I'm sorry to do this, but I'll need to catch up with you later. We really should report this to our office immediately.”

Brady steps back with a clear expression of understanding. “Of course, no problem. I'll call you – and it was nice to meet you, Deputy Marshal Hagar. Take care of our Sam, yeah?”

The elevator doors open and Sam hauls Dean out of the room before he can say anything else that's too fucking obvious.

“That guy seemed pretty chill for someone whose coworker was just turned inside out,” Dean says after the doors have closed and given them some privacy.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Sam demands, rounding on him.

Dean is startled. “What?”

“First you tamper with evidence, completely piss off the head medical examiner, and then you tell Brady you're my _partner_?”

“I'm not seeing the problem,” Deans say. He has that gall to sound faintly irritated.

Sam breathes hard through his nose and tries to control of his voice. “My point is, we're not in _fucking Kansas_ anymore, Dean. I work in this city. These people can all reach my office with a simple phone call. How the hell am I supposed to explain you?”

If anything, Dean's expression only turns more mulish.

“I don't see why you have to explain anything,” Dean says. “If you just drop all this bullshit and come with me, what does any of it matter?”

And just like that, Sam's rendered speechless. He stares helplessly down at Dean, who avoids his gaze and watches the shrinking floor number like its the final minutes of a tied Super Bowl game.

The ding of the elevator is loud in the silence.

–

Sam doesn't think twice about following Dean down a few streets to where he has the Impala parked in a ramp. Doesn't question what he's doing or where they're going. Dean likewise stays silent for the whole walk. He switches off his stereo as soon as he starts the car, face blank.

Sam slumps down in his seat. He breathes in the smell of the Impala and rubs hard at his face like if he tries enough, he might be able to turn it into something other than Sam Winchester's.

Dean drives to a motel, one of the drive-up kind Sam didn't even realize existed in the city. He already has a room, so Sam gets out of the car and follows him up to the door. He watches a bead of sweat trickle down into the back of his collar, and thinks distantly that he was right about the suit being too thick for the season.

As soon as the door is closed, Dean shoves him back against it and kisses him hard.

Sam responds immediately, hands coming up to frame his face. Dean's teeth drag against his bottom lip and he makes a noise.

Dean rips himself away like a punch and, unthinking, Sam's mouth chases after him.

But Dean steps neatly out of reach. That devastating mouth twists into a smile. “Miss me, Sammy?”

Fuck. Sam leans back against the door, never minding the way knob digs into his spine. He swipes his tongue over his still-tingling bottom lip. Watches Dean watch him do it.

“I guess I deserved that,” he says after a moment.

Dean's eyebrows shoot up. “What, deserve to be kissed?” He shakes his head and turns away, stripping off his rumpled suit jacket. “Look at the ego on you.”

Sam tracks him with his eyes. “Dean.”

Dean launches the jacket hard into the corner. His white shirt comes half untucked from his belted slacks from the force of the throw. He braces his hands on his hips and turns his face away.

A new, different sort of dread forms in Sam's stomach.

It's hard to communicate emotion through texts and the occasional drunk phone call. Sam hasn't allowed himself to think too closely about how Dean felt. He'd called it self-defense, but now he's thinking the more accurate term might be cowardice.

This Dean has never really been angry with him. Not since storming out of a room in Nebraska fourteen years ago.

He tries to gather his thoughts for an argument. He straightens up from the door and shrugs his shoulders to shake off the tension. It doesn't work. He's about to say – something, he's not sure what yet, but then Dean speaks again.

“I think it's some kind of spirit.”

Sam blinks. “What?”

Dean continues like he hadn't spoken, straightening up and looking for all the world like he's just continuing a conversation in media res. “First thought was werewolf, of course, but I'm pretty sure the lunar cycle isn't right. I'll need to check Dad's journal, see if there's anything about that symbol.”

Sam lets him go on, head spinning at all the sudden emotional turns. He'd forgotten this about Dean's anger: how he refused to confront it. Sam would rather shout himself hoarse than back down from an argument, but Dean always deflected and suppressed. Even at eight, Sam had found it infuriating. You can't fight a grudge that won't show itself.

Sam sinks down on the edge of one of the beds – because Dean had gotten a double, and that's another thing that makes his throat hurt – and without further ado puts his head in his hands.

Dean stops talking. After a moment, Sam angles a look over and finds that he's sitting at the end of the other bed, a mirror image to Sam.

“I'm sorry,” Sam says quietly. “I didn't know what else to do.” It's inadequate as hell, but he doesn't know what else he can offer. He wants Dean to understand that if Sam could have thought of a different solution, he would have taken it without hesitation.

“Why didn't you wake me up? We could have just run for it.”

He shakes his head. “It's not that simple.”

“It is,” Dean says surely. He's not even looking at him. “Sam, it is. You just choose family.”

And Sam, maybe because he's starting to learn, wonders if Dean's word choice is strategic or if he's simply incapable of saying _just choose me_.


End file.
